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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10817-0.txt b/10817-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63be0db --- /dev/null +++ b/10817-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11512 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10817 *** + +ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS + +By + +MAY SINCLAIR + + + +1922 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + +I Children + +II Adolescents + +III Anne and Jerrold + +IV Robert + +V Eliot and Anne + +VI Queenie + +VII Adeline + +VIII Anne and Colin + +IX Jerrold + +X Eliot + +XI Interim + +XII Colin, Jerrold, and Anne + +XIII Anne and Jerrold + +XIV Maisie + +XV Anne, Jerrold, and Maisie + +XVI Anne, Maisie, and Jerrold + +XVII Jerrold, Maisie, Anne, Eliot + +XVIII Jerrold and Anne + +XIX Anne and Eliot + +XX Jerrold, Maisie, and Anne + + +ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS + + + + +I + + +CHILDREN + +i + +Anne Severn had come again to the Fieldings. This time it was because +her mother was dead. + +She hadn't been in the house five minutes before she asked "Where's +Jerrold?" + +"Fancy," they said, "her remembering." + +And Jerrold had put his head in at the door and gone out again when he +saw her there in her black frock; and somehow she had known he was +afraid to come in because her mother was dead. + +Her father had brought her to Wyck-on-the-Hill that morning, the day +after the funeral. He would leave her there when he went back to India. + +She was walking now down the lawn between the two tall men. They were +taking her to the pond at the bottom where the goldfish were. It was +Jerrold's father who held her hand and talked to her. He had a nice +brown face marked with a lot of little fine, smiling strokes, and his +eyes were quick and kind. + +"You remember the goldfish, Anne?" + +"I remember everything." + +She had been such a little girl before, and they said she had forgotten. + +But she remembered so well that she always thought of Mr. Fielding as +Jerrold's father. She remembered the pond and the goldfish. Jerrold held +her tight so that she shouldn't tumble in. She remembered the big grey +and yellow house with its nine ball-topped gables; and the lawn, shut in +by clipped yew hedges, then spreading downwards, like a fan, from the +last green terrace where the two enormous peacocks stood, carved out of +the yew. + +Where it lay flat and still under the green wall she saw the tennis +court. Jerrold was there, knocking balls over the net to please little +Colin. She could see him fling back his head and laugh as Colin ran +stumbling, waving his racquet before him like a stiff flag. She heard +Colin squeal with excitement as the balls flew out of his reach. + +Her father was talking about her. His voice was sharp and anxious. + +"I don't know how she'll get on with your boys." (He always talked about +Anne as if she wasn't there.) "Ten's an awkward age. She's too old for +Colin and too young for Eliot and Jerrold." + +She knew their ages. Colin was only seven. Eliot, the clever one, was +very big; he was fifteen. Jerrold was thirteen. + +She heard Jerrold's father answering in his quiet voice. + +"You needn't worry. Jerry'll look after Anne all right." + +"And Adeline." + +"Oh yes, of course, Adeline." (Only somehow he made it sound as if she +wouldn't.) + +Adeline was Mrs. Fielding. Jerrold's mother. + +Anne wanted to get away from the quiet, serious men and play with +Jerrold; but their idea seemed to be that it was too soon. Too soon +after the funeral. It would be all right to go quietly and look at the +goldfish; but no, not to play. When she thought of her dead mother she +was afraid to tell them that she didn't want to go and look at the +goldfish. It was as if she knew that something sad waited for her by the +pond at the bottom. She would be safer over there where Jerrold was +laughing and shouting. She would play with him and he wouldn't be +afraid. + +The day felt like a Sunday, quiet, quiet, except for the noise of +Jerrold's laughter. Strange and exciting, his boy's voice rang through +her sadness; it made her turn her head again and again to look after +him; it called to her to forget and play. + +Little slim brown minnows darted backwards and forwards under the olive +green water of the pond. And every now and then the fat goldfish came +nosing along, orange, with silver patches, shining, making the water +light round them, stiff mouths wide open. When they bobbed up, small +bubbles broke from them and sparkled and went out. + +Anne remembered the goldfish; but somehow they were not so fascinating +as they used to be. + +A queer plant grew on the rock border of the pond. Green fleshy stems, +with blunt spikes all over them. Each carried a tiny gold star at its +tip. Thick, cold juice would come out of it if you squeezed it. She +thought it would smell like lavender. + +It had a name. She tried to think of it. + +Stonecrop. Stonecrop. Suddenly she remembered. + +Her mother stood with her by the pond, dark and white and slender. Anne +held out her hands smeared with the crushed flesh of the stonecrop; her +mother stooped and wiped them with her pockethandkerchief, and there was +a smell of lavender. The goldfish went swimming by in the olive-green +water. + +Anne's sadness came over her again; sadness so heavy that it kept her +from crying; sadness that crushed her breast and made her throat ache. + +They went back up the lawn, quietly, and the day felt more and more like +Sunday, or like--like a funeral day. + +"She's very silent, this small daughter of yours," Mr. Fielding said. + +"Yes," said Mr. Severn. + +His voice came with a stiff jerk, as if it choked him. He remembered, +too. + + +ii + +The grey and yellow flagstones of the terrace were hot under your feet. + +Jerrold's mother lay out there on a pile of cushions, in the sun. She +was very large and very beautiful. She lay on her side, heaved up on one +elbow. Under her thin white gown you could see the big lines of her +shoulder and hip, and of her long full thigh, tapering to the knee. + +Anne crouched beside her, uncomfortably, holding her little body away +from the great warm mass among the cushions. + +Mrs. Fielding was aware of this shrinking. She put out her arm and drew +Anne to her side again. + +"Lean back," she said. "Close. Closer." + +And Anne would lean close, politely, for a minute, and then stiffen and +shrink away again when the soft arm slackened. + +Eliot Fielding (the clever one) lay on his stomach, stretched out across +the terrace. He leaned over a book: _Animal Biology_. He was absorbed in +a diagram of a rabbit's heart and took no notice of his mother or of +Anne. + +Anne had been at the Manor five days, and she had got used to Jerrold's +mother's caresses. All but one. Every now and then Mrs. Fielding's hand +would stray to the back of Anne's neck, where the short curls, black as +her frock, sprang out in a thick bunch. The fingers stirred among the +roots of Anne's hair, stroking, stroking, lifting the bunch and letting +it fall again. And whenever they did this Anne jerked her head away and +held it stiffly out of their reach. + +She remembered how her mother's fingers, slender and silk-skinned and +loving, had done just that, and how their touch went thrilling through +the back of her neck, how it made her heart beat. Mrs. Fielding's +fingers didn't thrill you, they were blunt and fumbling. Anne thought: +"She's no business to touch me like that. No business to think she can +do what mother did." + +She was always doing it, always trying to be a mother to her. Her father +had told her she was going to try. And Anne wouldn't let her. She would +not let her. + +"Why do you move your head away, darling?" + +Anne didn't answer. + +"You used to love it. You used to come bending your funny little neck +and turning first one ear and than the other. Like a little cat. And now +you won't let me touch you." + +"No. No. Not--like that." + +"Yes. Yes. Like this. You don't remember." + +"I _do_ remember." + +She felt the blunt fingers on her neck again and started up. The +beautiful, wilful woman lay back on her cushions, smiling to herself. + +"You're a funny little thing, aren't you?" she said. + +Anne's eyes were glassed. She shook her head fiercely and spilled tears. + +Jerrold had come up on to the terrace. Colin trotted after him. They +were looking at her. Eliot had raised his head from his book and was +looking at her. + +"It _is_ rotten of you, mater," he said, "to tease that kid." + +"I'm not teasing her. Really, Eliot, you do say things--as if nobody but +yourself had any sense. You can run away now, Anne darling." + +Anne stood staring, with wild animal eyes that saw no place to run to. + +It was Jerrold who saved her. + +"I say, would you like to see my new buck rabbit?" + +"Rather!" + +He held out his hand and she ran on with him, along the terrace, down +the steps at the corner and up the drive to the stable yard where the +rabbits were. Colin followed headlong. + +And as she went Anne heard Eliot saying, "I've sense enough to remember +that her mother's dead." + +In his worst tempers there was always some fierce pity. + + +iii + +Mrs. Fielding gathered herself together and rose, with dignity, still +smiling. It was a smile of great sweetness, infinitely remote from all +discussion. + +"It's much too hot here," she said. "You might move the cushions down +there under the beech-tree." + +That, Eliot put it to himself, was just her way of getting out of it. To +Eliot the irritating thing about his mother was her dexterity in getting +out. She never lost her temper, and never replied to any serious +criticism; she simply changed the subject, leaving you with your +disapproval on your hands. + +In this Eliot's young subtlety misled him. Adeline Fielding's mind was +not the clever, calculating thing that, at fifteen, he thought it. Her +one simple idea was to be happy and, as a means to that end, to have +people happy about her. His father, or Anne's father, could have told +him that all her ideas were simple as feelings and impromptu. Impulse +moved her, one moment, to seize on the faithful, defiant little heart of +Anne, the next, to get up out of the sun. Anne's tears spoiled her +bright world; but not for long. Coolness was now the important thing, +not Anne and not Anne's mother. As for Eliot's disapproval, she was no +longer aware of it. + +"Oh, to be cool, to be cool again! Thank you, my son." + +Eliot had moved all the cushions down under the tree, scowling as he did +it, for he knew that when his mother was really cool he would have to +get up and move them back again. + +With the perfect curve of a great supple animal, she turned and settled +in her lair, under her tree. + +Presently, down the steps and across the lawn, Anne's father came +towards her, grave, handsome, and alone. + +Handsome even after fifteen years of India. Handsomer than when he was +young. More distinguished. Eyes lighter in the sallowish bronze. She +liked his lean, eager, deerhound's face, ready to start off, sniffing +the trail. A little strained, leashed now, John's eagerness. But that +was how he used to come to her, with that look of being ready, as if +they could do things together. + +She had tried to find his youth in Anne's face; but Anne's blackness and +whiteness were her mother's; her little nose was still soft and vague; +you couldn't tell what she would be like in five years' time. Still, +there was something; the same strange quality; the same +forward-springing grace. + +Before he reached her, Adeline was smiling again. A smile of the +delicate, instinctive mouth, of the blue eyes shining between curled +lids, under dark eyebrows; of the innocent white nose; of the whole +soft, milk-white face. Even her sleek, dark hair smiled, shining. She +was conscious of her power to make him come to her, to make herself felt +through everything, even through his bereavement. + +The subtle Eliot, looking over the terrace wall, observed her and +thought, "The mater's jolly pleased with herself. I wonder why." + +It struck Eliot also that a Commissioner of Ambala and a Member of the +Legislative Council and a widower ought not to look like Mr. Severn. He +was too lively, too adventurous. + +He turned again to the enthralling page. "The student should lay open +the theoracic cavity of the rabbit and dissect away the thymous gland +and other tissues which hide the origin of the great vessels; so as to +display the heart..." + +Yearp, the vet, would show him how to do that. + + +iv + +"His name's Benjy. He's a butterfly smut," said Jerrold. + +The rabbit was quiet now. He sat in Anne's arms, couching, his forepaws +laid on her breast. She stooped and kissed his soft nose that went in +and out, pushing against her mouth, in a delicate palpitation. He was +white, with black ears and a black oval at the root of his tail. Two +wing-shaped patches went up from his nose like a moustache. That was his +butterfly smut. + +"He _is_ sweet," she said. + +Colin said it after her in his shrill child's voice: "He is sweet." +Colin had a habit of repeating what you said. It was his way of joining +in the conversation. + +He stretched up his hand and stroked Benjy, and Anne felt the rabbit's +heart beat sharp and quick against her breast. A shiver went through +Benjy's body. + +Anne kissed him again. Her heart swelled and shook with maternal +tenderness. + +"Why does he tremble so?" + +"He's frightened. Don't touch him, Col-Col." + +Colin couldn't see an animal without wanting to stroke it. He put his +hands in his pockets to keep them out of temptation. By the way Jerrold +looked at him you saw how he loved him. + +About Colin there was something beautiful and breakable. Dusk-white +face; little tidy nose and mouth; dark hair and eyes like the minnows +swimming under the green water. But Jerrold's face was strong; and he +had funny eyes that made you keep looking at him. They were blue. Not +tiresomely blue, blue all the time, like his mother's, but secretly and +surprisingly blue, a blue that flashed at you and hid again, moving +queerly in the set squareness of his face, presenting at every turn a +different Jerrold. He had a pleasing straight up and down nose, his one +constant feature. The nostrils slanted slightly upward, making shadows +there. You got to know these things after watching him attentively. Anne +loved his mouth best of all, cross one minute (only never with Colin), +sweet the next, tilted at the corners, ready for his laughter. + +He stood close beside her in his white flannels, straight and slender. +He was looking at her, just as he looked at Colin. + +"Do you like him?" he said. + +"Who? Colin?" + +"No. Benjy." + +"I _love_ him." + +"I'll give him to you if you'd like to have him." + +"For my own? To keep?" + +"Rather." + +"Don't you want him?" + +"Yes. But I'd like you to have him." + +"Oh, Jerrold." + +She knew he was giving her Benjy because her mother was dead. + +"I've got the grey doe, and the fawn, and the lop-ear," he said. + +"Oh--I _shall_ love him." + +"You mustn't hold him too tight. And you must be careful not to touch +his stomach. If you squeeze him there he'll die." + +"Yes. If you squeeze his stomach he'll die," Colin cried excitedly. + +"I'll be ever so careful." + +They put him down, and he ran violently round and round, drumming with +his hind legs on the floor of the shed, startling the does that couched, +like cats, among the lettuce leaves and carrots. + +"When the little rabbits come half of them will be yours, because he'll +be their father." + +"Oh--" + +For the first time since Friday week Anne was happy. She loved the +rabbit, she loved little Colin. And more than anybody or anything she +loved Jerrold. + +Yet afterwards, in her bed in the night nursery, when she thought of her +dead mother, she lay awake crying; quietly, so that nobody could hear. + + +v + +It was Robert Fielding's birthday. Anne was to dine late that evening, +sitting beside him. He said that was his birthday treat. + +Anne had made him a penwiper of green cloth with a large blue bead in +the middle for a knob. He was going to keep it for ever. He had no +candles on his birthday cake at tea, because there would have been too +many. + +The big hall of the Manor was furnished like a room. + +The wide oak staircase came down into it from a gallery that went all +around. They were waiting there for Mrs. Fielding who was always a +little late. That made you keep on thinking about her. They were +thinking about her now. + +Up there a door opened and shut. Something moved along the gallery like +a large light, and Mrs. Fielding came down the stairs, slowly, +prolonging her effect. She was dressed in her old pearl-white gown. A +rope of pearls went round her neck and hung between her breasts. Roll +above roll of hair jutted out at the back of her head; across it, the +foremost curl rose like a comb, shining. Her eyes, intensely blue in her +milk-white face, sparkled between two dark wings of hair. Her mouth +smiled its enchanting and enchanted smile. She was aware that her +husband and John watched her from stair to stair; she was aware of their +men's eyes, darkening. Then suddenly she was aware of John's daughter. + +Anne was coming towards her across the hall, drawn by the magic, by the +eyes, by the sweet flower smell that drifted (not lavender, not +lavender). She stood at the foot of the staircase looking up. The +heavenly thing swept down to her and she broke into a cry. + +"Oh, you're beautiful. You're beautiful." + +Mrs. Fielding stopped her progress. + +"So are you, you little darling." + +She stooped quickly and kissed her, holding her tight to her breast, +crushed down into the bed of the flower scent. Anne gave herself up, +caught by the sweetness and the beauty. + +"You rogue," said Adeline. "At last I've got you." + +She couldn't bear to be repulsed, to have anything about her, even a cat +or a dog, that had not surrendered. + + +vi + +Every evening, soon after Colin's Nanna had tucked Anne up in her bed +and left her, the door of the night nursery would open, letting a light +in. When Anne saw the light coming she shut her eyes and burrowed under +the blankets, she knew it was Auntie Adeline trying to be a mother to +her. (You called them Auntie Adeline and Uncle Robert to please them, +though they weren't relations.) + +Every night she would hear Aunt Adeline's feet on the floor and her +candle clattering on the chest of drawers, she would feel her hands +drawing back the blankets and her face bending down over her. The mouth +would brush her forehead. And she would lie stiff and still, keeping her +eyes tight shut. + +To-night she heard voices at the door and somebody else's feet going +tip-toe behind Aunt Adeline's. Somebody else whispered "She's asleep." +That was Jerrold. Jerrold. She felt him standing beside his mother, +looking at her, and her eyelids fluttered; but she lay still. + +"She isn't asleep at all," said Aunt Adeline. "She's shamming, the +little monkey." + +Jerrold thought he knew why. He turned into the old nursery that was the +schoolroom now, and found Eliot there, examining a fly's leg under his +microscope. It was Eliot that he wanted.. + +"I say, you know, Mum's making a jolly mistake about that kid. Trying to +go on as if she was Anne's mother. You can see it makes her sick. It +would me, if my mother was dead." + +Eliot looked as if he wasn't listening, absorbed in his fly's leg. + +"Somebody's got to tell her." + +"Are you going to," said Eliot, "or shall I?" + +"Neither. I shall get Dad to. He'll do it best." + + +vii + +Robert Fielding didn't do it all at once. He put it off till Adeline +gave him his chance. He found her alone in the library and she had begun +it. + +"Robert, I don't know what to do about that child." + +"Which child?" + +"Anne. She's been here five weeks, and I've done everything I know, and +she hasn't shown me a scrap of affection. It's pretty hard if I'm to +house and feed the little thing and look after her like a mother and get +nothing. Nothing but half a cold little face to kiss night and morning. +It isn't good enough." + +"For Anne?" + +"For me, my dear. Trying to be a mother to somebody else's child who +doesn't love you, and isn't going to love you." + +"Don't try then." + +"Don't try?" + +"Don't try and be a mother to her. That's what Anne doesn't like." + +They had got as far as that when John Severn stood in the doorway. He +was retreating before their appearance of communion when she called him +back. + +"Don't go, John. We want you. Here's Robert telling me not to be a +mother to Anne." + +"And here's Adeline worrying because she thinks Anne isn't going to love +her." + +Severn sat down, considering it. + +"It takes time," he said. + +She looked at him, smiling under lowered brows. + +"Time to love me?" + +"Time for Anne to love you. She--she's so desperately faithful." + +The dressing-bell clanged from the belfry. Robert left them to finish a +discussion that he found embarrassing. + +"I said I'd try to be a mother to her. I _have_ tried, John; but the +little thing won't let me." + +"Don't try too hard. Robert's right. Don't--don't be a mother to her." + +"What am I to be?" + +"Oh, anything you like. A presence. A heavenly apparition. An impossible +ideal. Anything but that." + +"Do you think she's going to hold out for ever?" + +"Only against that. As long as she remembers. It puts her off." + +"She doesn't object to Robert being a father to her." + +"No. Because he's a better father than I am; and she knows it." + +Adeline flushed. She understood the implication and was hurt, +unreasonably. He saw her unreasonableness and her pain. + +"My dear Adeline, Anne's mother will always be Anne's mother. I was +never anywhere beside Alice. I've had to choose between the Government +of India and my daughter. You'll observe that I don't try to be a father +to Anne; and that, in consequence, Anne likes me. But she'll _love_ +Robert." + +"And 'like' me? If I don't try." + +"Give her time. Give her time." + +He rose, smiling down at her. + +"You think I'm unreasonable?" + +"The least bit in the world. For the moment." + +"My dear John, if I didn't love your little girl I wouldn't care." + +"Love her. Love her. She'll love you too, in her rum way. She's fighting +you now. She wouldn't fight if she didn't feel she was beaten. Nobody +could hold out against you long." + +She looked at the clock. + +"Heavens! I must go and dress." + +She thought: "_He_ didn't hold out against me, poor dear, five minutes. +I suppose he'll always remember that I jilted him for Robert." + +And now he wanted her to see that if Anne's mother would be always +Anne's mother, his wife would be always his wife. Was he desperately +faithful, too? Always? + +How could he have been? It was characteristic of Alice Severn that when +she had to choose between her husband and her daughter she had chosen +Anne. It was characteristic of John that when he had to choose between +his wife and his Government, he had not chosen Alice. He must have had +adventures out in India, conducted with the discretion becoming in a +Commissioner and a Member of the Legislative Council, but adventures. +Perhaps he was going back to one of them. + +Severn dressed hastily and went into the schoolroom where Anne sat +reading in her solitary hour between supper time and bed-time. He took +her on his knee, and she snuggled there, rubbing her head against his +shoulder. He thought of Adeline, teasing, teasing for the child's +caresses, and every time repulsed. + +"Anne," he said, "don't you think you can love Auntie Adeline?" + +Anne straightened herself. She looked at him with candid eyes. "I don't +know, Daddy, really, if I can." + +"Can't you love her a little?" + +"I--I would, if she wouldn't try--" + +"Try?" + +"To do like Mummy did." + +Robert was right. He knew it, but he wanted to be sure. + +Anne went on. "It's no use, you see, her trying. It only makes me think +of Mummy more." + +"Don't you _want_ to think of her?" + +"Yes. But I want to think by myself, and Auntie Adeline keeps on getting +in the way." + +"Still, she's awfully kind to you, isn't she?" + +"Awfully." + +"And you mustn't hurt her feelings." + +"Have I? I didn't mean to." + +"You wouldn't if you loved her." + +"_You_ haven't ever hurt her feelings, have you, Daddy?" + +"No." + +"Well, you see, it's because I keep on thinking about Mummy. I want her +back--I want her so awfully." + +"I know, Anne, I know." + +Anne's mind burrowed under, turning on its tracks, coming out suddenly. + +"Do you love Auntie Adeline, Daddy?" + +It was terrible, but he owned that he had brought it on himself. + +"I can't say. I've known her such a long time; before you were born." + +"Before you married Mummy!" + +"Yes." + +"Well, won't it do if I love Uncle Robert and Eliot and Colin? And +Jerrold?" + +That night he said to Adeline, "I know who'll take my place when I'm +gone." + +"Who? Robert?" + +"No, Jerrold." + +In another week he had sailed for India and Ambala. + + * * * * * + + +viii + +Jerrold was brave. + +When Colin upset the schoolroom lamp Jerrold wrapped it in the +tablecloth and threw it out of the window just in time. He put the chain +on Billy, the sheep-dog, when he went mad and snapped at everybody. It +seemed odd that Jerrold should be frightened. + +A minute ago he had been happy, rolling over and over on the grass, +shouting with laughter while Sandy, the Aberdeen, jumped on him, +growling his merry puppy's growl and biting the balled fists that pushed +him off. + +They were all out on the lawn. Anne waited for Jerry to get up and take +her into Wyck, to buy chocolates. + +Every time Jerrold laughed his mother laughed too, a throaty, girlish +giggle. + +"I love Jerry's laugh," she said. "It's the nicest noise he makes." + +Then, suddenly, she stopped it. She stopped it with a word. + +"If you're going into Wyck, Jerry, you might tell Yearp----" + +Yearp. + +He got up. His face was very red. He looked mournful and frightened too. +Yes, frightened. + +"I--can't, Mother." + +"You can perfectly well. Tell Yearp to come and look at Pussy's ears, I +think she's got canker." + +"She hasn't," said Jerry defiantly. + +"She jolly well has," said Eliot. + +"Rot." + +"You only say that because you don't like to think she's got it." + +"Eliot can go himself. _He's_ fond of Yearp." + +"You'll do as you're told, Jerry. It's downright cowardice." + +"It isn't cowardice, is it, Daddy?" + +"Well," said his father, "it isn't exactly courage." + +"Whatever it is," his mother said, "you'll have to get over it. You go +on as if nobody cared about poor Binky but yourself." + +Binky was Jerry's dog. He had run into a motor-bicycle in the Easter +holidays and hurt his back, so that Yearp, the vet, had had to come and +give him chloroform. That was why Jerrold was afraid of Yearp. When he +saw him he saw Binky with his nose in the cup of chloroform; he heard +him snorting out his last breath. And he couldn't bear it. + +"I could send one of the men," his father was saying. + +"Don't encourage him, Robert. He's got to face it." + +"Yes, Jerrold, you'd better go and get it over. You can't go on funking +it for ever." + +Jerrold went. But he went alone, he wouldn't let Anne go with him. He +said he didn't want her to be mixed up with it. + +"He means," said Eliot, "that he doesn't want to think of Yearp every +time he sees Anne." + + +ix + +It was true that Eliot was fond of Yearp's society. He would spend hours +with him, learning how to dissect frogs and rabbits and pigeons. He +drove about the country with Yearp seeing the sick animals, the ewes at +lambing time and the cows at their calving. And he spent half the +midsummer holidays reading _Animal Biology_ and drawing diagrams of +frogs' hearts and pigeons' brains. He said he wasn't going to Oxford or +Cambridge when he left Cheltenham; he was going to Barts. He wanted to +be a doctor. But his mother said he didn't know what he'd want to be in +three years' time. She thought him awful, with his frogs' hearts and +horrors. + +Next to Jerrold and little Colin Anne loved Eliot. He seemed to know +when she was thinking about her mother and to understand. He took her +into the woods to look for squirrels; he showed her the wildflowers and +told her all their names: bugloss, and lady's smock and speedwell, +king-cup, willow herb and meadow sweet, crane's bill and celandine. + +One day they found in the garden a tiny egg-shaped shell made of +gold-coloured lattice work. When they put it under the microscope they +saw inside it a thing like a green egg. Every day they watched it; it +put out two green horns, and a ridge grew down the middle of it, and one +morning they found the golden shell broken. A long, elegant fly with +slender wings crawled beside it. + +When Benjy died of eating too much lettuce Eliot was sorry. Aunt Adeline +said it was all put on and that he really wanted to cut him up and see +what he was made of. But Eliot didn't. He said Benjy was sacred. That +was because he knew they loved him. And he dug the grave and lined it +with moss and told Aunt Adeline to shut up when she said it ought to +have been lettuce leaves. + +Aunt Adeline complained that it was hard that Eliot couldn't be nice to +her when he was her favorite. + +"Little Anne, little Anne, what have you done to my Eliot?" She was +always saying things like that. Anne couldn't think what she meant till +Jerrold told her she was the only kid that Eliot had ever looked at. The +big Hawtrey girl from Medlicote would have given her head to be in +Anne's shoes. + +But Anne didn't care. Her love for Jerrold was sharp and exciting. She +brought tears to it and temper. It was mixed up with God and music and +the deaths of animals, and sunsets and all sorrowful and beautiful and +mysterious things. Thinking about her mother made her think about +Jerrold; but she never thought about Eliot at all when he wasn't there. + +She would run away from Eliot any minute if she heard Jerrold calling. +It was Jerrold, Jerrold, all the time, said Aunt Adeline. + +And when Eliot was busy with his microscope and Jerrold had turned from +her to Colin, there was Uncle Robert. He seemed to know the moments when +she wanted him. Then he would take her out riding with him over the +estate that stretched from Wyck across the valley of the Speed and +beyond it for miles over the hills. And he would show her the reaping +machines at work, and the great carthorses, and the prize bullocks in +their stalls at the Manor Farm. And Anne told him her secret, the secret +she had told to nobody but Jerrold. + +"Some day," she said, "I shall have a farm, with horses and cows and +pigs and little calves." + +"Shall you like that?" + +"Yes," said Anne. "I would. Only it can't happen till Grandpapa's dead. +And I don't want him to die." + + +x + +They were saying now that Colin was wonderful. He was only seven, yet he +could play the piano like a grown-up person, very fast and with loud +noises in the bass. And he could sing like an angel. When you heard him +you could hardly believe that he was a little boy who cried sometimes +and was afraid of ghosts. Two masters came out from Cheltenham twice a +week to teach him. Eliot said Colin would be a professional when he grew +up, but his mother said he should be nothing of the sort and Eliot +wasn't to go putting nonsense like that into his head. Still, she was +proud of Colin when his hands went pounding and flashing over the keys. +Anne had to give up practising because she did it so badly that it hurt +Colin to hear her. + +He wasn't in the least conceited about his playing, not even when +Jerrold stood beside him and looked on and said, "Clever Col-Col. Isn't +he a wonderful kid? Look at him. Look at his little hands, all over the +place." + +He didn't think playing was wonderful. He thought the things that +Jerrold did were wonderful. With his child's legs and arms he tried to +do the things that Jerrold did. They told him he would have to wait nine +years before he could do them. He was always talking about what he would +do in nine years' time. + +And there was the day of the walk to High Slaughter, through the valley +of the Speed to the valley of the Windlode, five miles there and back. +Eliot and Jerrold and Anne had tried to sneak out when Colin wasn't +looking; but he had seen them and came running after them down the +field, calling to them to let him come. Eliot shouted "We can't, +Col-Col, it's too far," but Colin looked so pathetic, standing there in +the big field, that Jerrold couldn't bear it. + +"I think," he said, "we might let him come." + +"Yes. Let him," Anne said. + +"Rot. He can't walk it." + +"I can," said Colin. "I can." + +"I tell you he can't. If he's tired he'll be sick in the night and then +he'll say it's ghosts." + +Colin's mouth trembled. + +"It's all right, Col-Col, you're coming." Jerrold held out his hand. + +"Well," said Eliot, "if he crumples up _you_ can carry him." + +"I can," said Jerrold. + +"So can I," said Anne. + +"Nobody," said Colin "shall carry me. I can walk." + +Eliot went on grumbling while Colin trotted happily beside them. "You're +a fearful ass, Jerrold. You're simple ruining that kid. He thinks he can +come butting into everything. Here's the whole afternoon spoiled for all +three of us. He can't walk. You'll see he'll drop out in the first +mile." + +"I shan't, Jerrold." + +And he didn't. He struggled on down the fields to Upper Speed and along +the river-meadows to Lower Speed and Hayes Mill, and from Hayes Mill to +High Slaughter. It was when they started to walk back that his legs +betrayed him, slackening first, then running, because running was easier +than walking, for a change. Then dragging. Then being dragged between +Anne and Jerrold (for he refused to be carried). Then staggering, +stumbling, stopping dead; his child's mouth drooping. + +Then Jerrold carried him on his back with his hands clasped under +Colin's soft hips. Colin's body slipped every minute and had to be +jerked up again; and when it slipped his arms tightened round Jerrold's +neck, strangling him. + +At last Jerrold, too, staggered and stumbled and stopped dead. + +"I'll take him," said Eliot. He forbore, nobly, to say "I told you so." + +And by turns they carried him, from the valley of the Windlode to the +valley of the Speed, past Hayes Mill, through Lower Speed, Upper Speed, +and up the fields to Wyck Manor. Then up the stairs to the schoolroom, +pursued by their mother's cries. + +"Oh Col-Col, my little Col-Col! What have you done to him, Eliot?" + +Eliot bore it like a lamb. + +Only after they had left Colin in the schoolroom, he turned on Jerrold. + +"Some day," he said, "Col-Col will be a perfect nuisance. Then you and +Anne'll have to pay for it." + +"Why me and Anne?" + +"Because you'll both be fools enough to keep on giving in to him." + +"I suppose," said Jerrold bitterly, "you think you're clever." + +Adeline came out and overheard him and made a scene in the gallery +before Pinkney, the footman, who was bringing in the schoolroom tea. She +said Eliot was clever enough and old enough to know better. They were +all old enough. And Jerrold said it was his fault, not Eliot's, and Anne +said it was hers, too. And Adeline declared that it was all their faults +and she would have to speak to their father. She kept it up long after +Eliot and Jerrold had retreated to the bathroom. If it had been anybody +but her little Col-Col. She wouldn't _have_ him dragged about the +country till he dropped. + +She added that Col-Col was her favourite. + + +xi + +It was the last week of the holidays. Rain had come with the west wind. +The hills were drawn back behind thick sheets of glassy rain. Shining +spears of rain dashed themselves against the west windows. Jets of rain +rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace. Rain ran before the +wind in a silver scud along the flagged path under the south front. + +The wind made hard, thudding noises as if it pounded invisible bodies in +the air. It screamed high above the drumming and hissing of the rain. + +It excited the children. + +From three o'clock till tea-time the sponge fight stormed up and down +the passages. The house was filled with the sound of thudding feet and +shrill laughter. + +Adeline lay on the sofa in the library. Eliot was with her there. + +She was amused, but a little plaintive when they rushed in to her. + +"It's perfectly awful the noise you children are making. I'm tired out +with it." + +Jerrold flung himself on her. "Tired? What must _we_ be?" + +But he wasn't tired. His madness still worked in him. It sought some +supreme expression. + +"What can we play at next?" said Anne. + +"What can we play at next?" said Colin. + +"Something quiet, for goodness sake," said his mother. + +They were very quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the +booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent +approach. The sponge caught him--with a delightful, squelching +flump--full and fair on the top of his sleek head. + +Anne shrieked with delight. "Oh Jerry, did you _hear_ him say 'Damn'?" + +They rushed back to the library to tell Eliot. But Eliot couldn't see +that it was funny. He said it was a rotten thing to do. + +"When he's a servant and can't do anything to _us_." + +"I never thought of that," said Jerrold. (It _was_ pretty rotten.) ... +"I could ask him to bowl to me and let him get me out." + +"He'd do that in any case." + +"Still--I'll have _asked_ him." + +But it seemed that Pinkney was in no mood to think of cricket, and they +had to be content with begging his pardon, which he gave, as he said, +"freely." Yet it struck them that he looked sadder than a booby-trap +should have made him. + +It was just before bed-time that Eliot told them the awful thing. + +"I suppose you know," he said, "that Pinkney's mother's dying?" + +"I didn't," said Jerrold. "But I might have known. I notice that when +you're excited, _really_ excited, something awful's bound to happen.... +Don't cry, Anne. It was beastly of us, but we didn't know." + +"No. It's no use crying," said Eliot. "You can't do anything." + +"That's it," Anne sobbed. "If we only could. If we could go to him and +tell him we wouldn't have done it if we'd known." + +"You jolly well can't. It would only bother the poor chap. Besides, it +was Jerry did it. Not you." + +"It _was_ me. I filled the sponge. We did it together." + +What they had done was beastly--setting booby-traps for Pinkney, and +laughing at him when his mother was dying--but they had done it +together. The pain of her sin had sweetness in it since she shared it +with Jerry. Jerry's arm was round her as she went upstairs to bed, +crying. They sat together on her bed, holding each other's hands; they +faced it together. + +"You'd never have done it, Anne, if I hadn't made you." + +"I wouldn't mind so much if we hadn't laughed at him." + +"Well, we couldn't help _that_. And it wasn't as if we'd known." + +"If only we could tell him--" + +"We can't. He'd hate us to go talking to him about his mother." + +"He'd hate us." + +Then Anne had an idea. They couldn't talk to Pinkney but they could +write. That wouldn't hurt him. Jerry fetched a pencil and paper from the +schoolroom; and Anne wrote. + + Dear Pinkney: We didn't know. We wouldn't have done it if we'd + known. We are awfully sorry. + + Yours truly, + + ANNE SEVERN. + + P.S. You aren't to answer this. + + JERROLD FIELDING. + +Half an hour later Jerrold knocked at her door. + +"Anne--are you in bed?" + +She got up and stood with him at the door in her innocent nightgown. + +"It's all right," he said. "I've seen Pinkney. He says we aren't to +worry. He knew we wouldn't have done it if we'd known." + +"Was he crying?" + +"No. Laughing.... All the same, it'll be a lesson to us," he said. + + +xii + +"Where's Jerrold?" + +Robert Fielding called from the dogcart that waited by the porch. Eliot +sat beside him, very stiff and straight, painfully aware of his mother +who stood on the flagged path below, and made yearning faces at him, +doing her best, at this last moment, to destroy his morale. Colin sat +behind him by Jerrold's place, tearful but excited. He was to go with +them to the station. Eliot tried hard to look as if he didn't care; and, +as his mother said, he succeeded beautifully. + +It was the end of the holidays. + +"Adeline, you might see where Jerrold is." + +She went into the house and saw Anne and Jerrold coming slowly down the +stairs together from the gallery. At the turn they stopped and looked at +each other, and suddenly he had her in his arms. They kissed, with +close, quick kisses and then stood apart, listening. + +Adeline went back. "The monkey," she thought; "and I who told her she +didn't know how to do it." + +Jerrold ran out, very red in the face and defiant. He gave himself to +his mother's large embrace, broke from it, and climbed into the dogcart. +The mare bounded forward, Jerrold and Eliot raised their hats, shouted +and were gone. + +Adeline watched while the long lines of the beech-trees narrowed on +them, till the dogcart swung out between the ball-topped pillars of the +Park gates. + +Last time their going had been nothing to her. Today she could hardly +bear it. She wondered why. + +She turned and found little Anne standing beside her. They moved +suddenly apart. Each had seen the other's tears. + + +xiii + +Outside Colin's window the tree rocked in the wind. A branch brushed +backwards and forwards, it tapped on the pane. Its black shadow shook on +the grey, moonlit wall. + +Jerrold's empty bed showed white and dreadful in the moonlight, covered +with a sheet. Colin was frightened. + +A narrow passage divided his room from Anne's. The doors stood open. He +called "Anne! Anne!" + +A light thud on the floor of Anne's room, then the soft padding of naked +feet, and Anne stood beside him in her white nightgown. Her hair rose in +a black ruff round her head, her eyes were very black in the sharp +whiteness of her face. + +"Are you frightened, Colin?" + +"No. I'm not exactly frightened, but I think there's something there." + +"It's nothing. Only the tree." + +"I mean--in Jerry's bed." + +"Oh no, Colin." + +"Dare you," he said, "sit on it?" + +"Of course I dare. _Now_ you see. _Now_ you won't be frightened." + +"You know," Colin said, "I don't mind a bit when Jerrold's there. The +ghosts never come then, because he frightens them away." + +The clock struck ten. They counted the strokes. Anne still sat on +Jerrold's bed with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms clasped +round them. + +"I'll tell you a secret," Colin said. "Only you mustn't tell." + +"I won't." + +"Really and truly?" + +"Really and truly." + +"I think Jerrold's the wonderfullest person in the whole world. When I +grow up I'm going to be like him." + +"You couldn't be." + +"Not now. But when I'm grown-up, I say." + +"You couldn't be. Not even then. Jerrold can't sing and he can't play." + +"I don't care." + +"But you mustn't do what he can't if you want to be like him." + +"When I'm singing and playing I shall pretend I'm not." + +"You needn't. You won't ever be him." + +"I--shall." + +"Col-Col, I don't want you to be like him. I don't want anybody else to +be like Jerrold in the whole world." + +"But," said Colin, "I shall be like him." + + +xiv + +Every night Adeline still came to see Anne in bed. The little thing had +left off pretending to be asleep. She lay with eyes wide open, yielding +sweetly to the embrace. + +To-night her eyelids lay shut, slack on her eyes, and Adeline thought +"She's really asleep, the little lamb. Better not touch her." + +She was going away when a sound stopped her. A sound of sobbing. + +"Anne--Anne--are you crying?" + +A tremulous drawing-in of breath, a shaking under the bed-clothes. On +Anne's white cheek the black eyelashes were parted and pointed with her +tears. She had been crying a long time. + +Adeline knelt down, her face against Anne's face. + +"What is it darling? Tell me." + +Anne shivered. + +"Oh Anne, I wish you loved me. You don't, ducky, a little bit." + +"I do. I do. Really and truly." + +"Then give me a kiss. The proper kind." + +Anne gave her the tight, deep kiss that was the proper kind. + +"Now--tell me what it is." She knew by Anne's surrender that, this time, +it was not her mother. + +"I don't know." + +"You _do_ know. Is it Jerry? Do you want Jerry?" + +At the name Anne's crying broke out again, savage, violent. + +Adeline held her close and let the storm beat itself out against her +heart. + +"You can't want him more than I do, little Anne." + +"You'll have him when he comes back. And I shan't. I shall be gone." + +"You'll come again, darling. You'll come again." + + + +II + + +ADOLESCENTS + +i + +For the next two years Anne came again and again, staying four months at +Wyck and four months in London with Grandmamma Severn and Aunt Emily, +and four months with Grandpapa Everitt at the Essex Farm. + +When she was twelve they sent her to school in Switzerland for three +years. Then back to Wyck, after eight months of London and Essex in +between. + +Only the times at Wyck counted for Anne. Her calendar showed them clear +with all their incidents recorded; thick black lines blotted out the +other days, as she told them off, one by one. Three years and eight +months were scored through in this manner. + +Anne at fifteen was a tall girl with long hair tied in a big black bow +at the cape of her neck. Her vague nose had settled into the +forward-raking line that made her the dark likeness of her father. Her +body was slender but solid; the strong white neck carried her head high +with the poise of a runner. She looked at least seventeen in her +clean-cut coat and skirt. Probably she wouldn't look much older for +another fifteen years. + +Robert Fielding stared with incredulity at this figure which had pursued +him down the platform at Wyck and now seized him by the arm. + +"Is it--is it Anne?" + +"Of course it is. Why, didn't you expect me?" + +"I think I expected something smaller and rather less grown-up." + +"I'm not grown-up. I'm the same as ever." + +"Well, you're not little Anne any more." + +She squeezed his arm, hanging on it in her old loving way. "No. But I'm +still me. And I'd have known _you_ anywhere." + +"What? With my grey hair?" + +"I love your grey hair." + +It made him handsome, more lovable than ever. Anne loved it as she loved +his face, tanned and tightened by sun and wind, the long hard-drawn +lines, the thin, kind mouth, the clear, greenish brown eyes, quick and +kind. + +Colin stood by the dogcart in the station yard. Colin was changed. He +was no longer the excited child who came rushing to you. He stood for +you to come to him, serious and shy. His child's face was passing from +prettiness to a fine, sombre beauty. + +"What's happened to Col-Col? He's all different?" + +"Is he? Wait," Uncle Robert said, "till you've seen Jerrold." + +"Oh, is Jerrold going to be different, too?" + +"I'm afraid he'll _look_ a little different." + +"I don't care," she said. "He'll _be_ him." + +She wanted to come back and find everybody and everything the same, +looking exactly as she had left them. What they had once been for her +they must always be. + +They drove slowly up Wyck Hill. The tree-tops meeting overhead made a +green tunnel. You came out suddenly into the sunlight at the top. The +road was the same. They passed by the Unicorn Inn and the Post Office, +through the narrow crooked street with the church and churchyard at the +turn; and so into the grey and yellow Market Square with the two tall +elms standing up on the little green in the corner. They passed the +Queen's Head; the powder-blue sign hung out from the yellow front the +same as ever. Next came the fountain and the four forked roads by the +signpost, then the dip of the hill to the left and the grey ball-topped +stone pillars of the Park gates on the right. + +At the end of the beech avenue she saw the house; the three big, +sharp-pointed gables of the front: the little gable underneath in the +middle, jutting out over the porch. That was the bay of Aunt Adeline's +bed-room. She used to lean out of the lattice windows and call to the +children in the garden. The house was the same. + +So were the green terraces and the wide, flat-topped yew walls, and the +great peacocks carved out of the yew; and beyond them the lawn, flowing +out under banks of clipped yew down to the goldfish pond. They were +things that she had seen again and again in sleep and memory; things +that had made her heart ache thinking of them; that took her back and +back, and wouldn't let her be. She had only to leave off what she was +doing and she saw them; they swam before her eyes, covering the Swiss +mountains, the flat Essex fields, the high white London houses. They +waited for her at the waking end of dreams. + +She had found them again. + +A gap in the green walls led into the flower garden, and there, down the +path between tall rows of phlox and larkspurs and anchusa, of blue +heaped on blue, Aunt Adeline came holding up a tall bunch of flowers, +blue on her white gown, blue on her own milk-white and blue. She came, +looking like a beautiful girl; the same, the same; Anne had seen her in +dreams, walking like that, tall among the tall flowers. + +She never hurried to meet you; hurrying would have spoiled the beauty of +her movement; she came slowly, absent-mindedly, stopping now and then to +pluck yet another of the blue spires. Robert stood still in the path to +watch her. She was smiling a long way off, intensely aware of him. + +"Is _that_ Anne?" she said. + +"Yes, Auntie, _really_ Anne." + +"Well, you _are_ a big girl, aren't you?" + +She kissed her three times and smiled, looking away again over her +flower-beds. That was the difference between Aunt Adeline and Uncle +Robert. His eyes made you important; they held you all the time he +talked to you; when he smiled, it was for you altogether and not for +himself at all. Her eyes never looked at you long; her smile wandered, +it was half for you and half for herself, for something she was thinking +of that wasn't you. + +"What have you done with your father?" she said. + +"I was to tell you. Daddy's ever so sorry; but he can't come till +to-morrow. A horrid man kept him on business." + +"Oh?" A little crisping wave went over Aunt Adeline's face, a wave of +vexation. Anne saw it. + +"He is _really_ sorry. You should have heard him damning and cursing." + +They laughed. Adeline was appeased. She took her husband's arm and drew +him to herself. Something warm and secret seemed to pass between them. + +Anne said to herself: "That's how people look--" without finishing her +thought. + +Lest she should feel shut out he turned to her. + +"Well, are you glad to be back again, Anne?" he said. + +"Glad? I'm never glad to be anywhere else. I've been counting the weeks +and the days and the minutes." + +"The minutes?" + +"Yes. In the train." + +They had come up on to the flagged terrace. Anne looked round her. + +"Where's Jerrold?" she said. + +And they laughed again. "There's no doubt," said Uncle Robert, "about it +being the same Anne." + + +ii + +A day passed. John Severn had come. He was to stay with the Fieldings +for the last weeks of his leave. He had followed Adeline from the hot +terrace to the cool library. When she wanted the sun again he would +follow her out. + +Robert and Colin were down at the Manor Farm. Eliot was in the +schoolroom, reading. + +Jerrold and Anne sat together on the grass under the beech trees, alone. + +They had got over the shock of the first encounter, when they met at +arms' length, not kissing, but each remembering, shyly, that they used +to kiss. If they had not got over the "difference," the change of Anne +from a child to a big girl, of Jerrold from a big boy to a man's height +and a man's voice, it was because, in some obscure way, that difference +fascinated them. The great thing was that underneath it they were both, +as Anne said, "the same." + +"I don't know what I'd have done, Jerrold, if you hadn't been." + +"You might have known I would be." + +"I did know." + +"I say, what a thundering lot of hair you've got. I like it." + +"Do you like what Auntie Adeline calls my new nose?" + +"Awfully." + +She meditated. "Jerrold, do you remember Benjy?" + +"Rather." + +"Dear Benjy... Do you know, I can hardly believe I'm here. I never +thought I should come again." + +"But why shouldn't you?" + +"I don't know. Only I think every time something'll happen to prevent +me. I'm afraid of being ill or dying before I can get away. And they +might send me anywhere any day. It's awful to be so uncertain." + +"Don't think about it. You're here now." + +"Oh Jerrold, supposing it was the last time--" + +"It isn't the last time. Don't spoil it by thinking." + +"_You'd_ think if you were me." + +"I say--you don't mean they're not decent to you?" + +"Who, Grandmamma and Grandpapa? They're perfect darlings. So's Aunt +Emily. But they're awfully old and they can't play at anything, except +bridge. And it isn't the same thing at all. Besides, I don't--" + +She paused. It wasn't kind to the poor things to say "I don't love them +the same." + +"Do you like us so awfully, then?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm glad you like us." + +They were silent. + +Up and down the flagged terrace above them Aunt Adeline and Uncle Robert +walked together. The sound of his voice came to them, low and troubled. + +Anne listened, "Is anything wrong?" she said. "They've been like that +for ages." + +"Daddy's bothered about Eliot." + +"Eliot?" + +"About his wanting to be a doctor." + +"Is Auntie Adeline bothered?" + +"No. She would be if she knew. But she doesn't think it'll happen. She +never thinks anything will happen that she doesn't like. But it will. +They can't keep him off it. He's been doing medicine at Cambridge +because they won't let him go and do it at Bart's. It's just come out +that he's been at it all the time. Working like blazes." + +"Why shouldn't he be a doctor if he likes?" + +"Because he's the eldest son. It wouldn't matter so much if it was only +Colin or me. But Eliot ought to have the estate. And he says he won't +have it. He doesn't want it. He says Daddy's got to leave it to me. +That's what's worrying the dear old thing. He thinks it wouldn't be +fair." + +"Who to?" + +Jerrold laughed. "Why, to _Eliot_. He's got it into his dear old head +that he _ought_ to have it. He can't see that Eliot knows his own +business best. It _would_ be most awfully in his way... It's pretty +beastly for me, too. I don't like taking it when I know Daddy wants +Eliot to have it. That's to say, he _doesn't_ want; he'd like me to have +it, because I'd take care of it. But that makes him all the more stuck +on Eliot, because he thinks it's the right thing. I don't like having it +in any case." + +"Why ever not?" + +"Well, I _can_ only have it if Daddy dies, and I'd rather die myself +first." + +"That's how I feel about my farm." + +"Beastly, isn't it? Still, I'm not worrying. Daddy's frightfully +healthy, thank Heaven. He'll live to be eighty at the very least. Why--I +should be fifty." + +"_You're_ all right," said Anne. "But it's awful for me. Grandpapa might +die any day. He's seventy-five _now_. It'll be ages before you're +fifty." + +"And I may never be it. India may polish me off long before that." He +laughed his happy laugh. The idea of his own death seemed to Jerrold +irresistibly funny. + +"_India_?" + +He laughed again at her dismay. + +"Rather. I'm going in for the Indian Civil." + +"Oh Jerrold--you'll be away years and years, nearly all the time, like +Daddy, and I shan't ever see you." + +"I shan't start for ages. Not for five years. Lots of time to see each +other in." + +"Lots of time for _not_ seeing each other ever again." + +She sat staring mournfully, seeing before her the agony of separation. + +"Nonsense," said Jerrold. "Why on earth shouldn't you come out to India +too? I say, that would be a lark, wouldn't it? You would come, wouldn't +you?" + +"Like a shot," said Anne. + +"Would you give up your farm to come?" + +"I'd give up anything." + +"_That's_ all right. Let's go and play tennis." + +They played for two hours straight on end, laughing and shouting. +Adeline, intensely bored by Eliot and his absurd affairs, came down the +lawn to look at them. She loved their laughter. It was good to have Anne +there. Anne was so happy. + +John Severn came to her. + +"Did you ever see anything happier than that absurd boy?" she said. "Why +can't Eliot be jolly and contented, too, like Jerrold?" + +"Don't you think the chief reason may be that he _isn't_ Jerrold?" + +"Jerrold's adorable. He's never given me a day's trouble since he was +born." + +"No. It's other women he'll give trouble to," said John, "before he's +done." + + +iii + +Colin was playing. All afternoon he had been practising with fury; first +scales, then exercises. Then a pause; and now, his fingers slipped into +the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata. + +Secretly, mysteriously he began; then broke, sharply, impatiently, +crescendo, as the passion of the music mounted up and up. And now as it +settled into its rhythm his hands ran smoothly and joyously along. + +The west window of the drawing-room was open to the terrace. Eliot and +Anne sat out there and listened. + +"He's wonderful, isn't he?" she said. + +Eliot shook his head. "Not so wonderful as he was. Not half so wonderful +as he ought to be. He'll never be good enough for a professional. He +knows he won't." + +"What's happened?" + +"Nothing. That's just it. Nothing ever will happen. He's stuck. It's the +same with his singing. He'll never be any good if he can't go away and +study somewhere. If it isn't Berlin or Leipzig it ought to be London. +But father can't live there and the mater won't go anywhere without him. +So poor Col-Col's got to stick here doing nothing, with the same rotten +old masters telling him things he knew years ago.... It'll be worse next +term when he goes to Cheltenham. He won't be able to practice, and +nobody'll care a damn.... Not that that would matter if he cared +himself." + +Colin was playing the slow movement now, the grave, pure passion, +pressed out from the solemn bass, throbbed, tense with restraint. + +"Oh Eliot, he _does_ care." + +"In a way. Not enough to keep on at it. You've got to slog like blazes, +if you want to get on." + +"Jerrold won't, ever, then." + +"Oh yes he will. _He'll_ get on all right, because he _doesn't_ care; +because work comes so jolly easy to him. He hasn't got to break his +heart over it.... The trouble with Colin is that he cares, awfully, for +such a lot of other things. Us, for instance. He'll leave off in the +middle of a movement if he hears Jerrold yelling for him. He ought to be +able to chuck us all; we're all of us in his way. He ought to hate us. +He ought to hate Jerrold worst of all." + +Adeline and John Severn came round the corner of the terrace. + +"What's all this about hating?" he said. + +"What do you mean, Eliot?" said she. + +Eliot raised himself wearily. "I mean," he said, "you'll never be any +good at anything if you're not prepared to commit a crime for it." + +"I know what I'd commit a crime for," said Anne. "But I shan't tell." + +"You needn't. _You'd_ do it for anybody you were gone on." + +"Well, I would. I'd tell any old lie to make them happy. I'd steal for +them if they were hungry. I'd kill anybody who hurt them." + +"I believe you would," said Eliot. + +"We know who Anne would commit her crimes for." + +"We don't. We don't know anything she doesn't want us to," said Eliot, +shielding her from his mother's mischief. + +"That's right, Eliot, stick up for her," said John. He knew what she was +thinking of. "Would Jerrold commit a crime?" he said. + +"Sooner than any of us. But not for the Indian Civil. He'd rob, butcher, +lie himself black in the face for anything he really cared for." + +"He would for Colin," said Anne. + +"Rob? Butcher and lie?" Her father meditated. + +"It sounds like Jerrold, doesn't it?" said Adeline. "Absurd children. +Thank goodness they don't any of them know what they're talking +about.... And here's tea." + +Indoors the music stopped suddenly and Colin came out, ready. + +"What's Jerrold doing?" he said. + +It was, as Eliot remarked, a positive obsession. + + +iv + +Tea was over. Adeline and Anne sat out together on the terrace. The +others had gone. Adeline looked at her watch. + +"What time is it?" said Anne. + +"Twenty past five." + +Anne started up. "And I'm going to ride with Jerrold at half-past." + +"Are you? I thought you were going to stay with me." + +Anne turned. "Do you want me to, Auntie?" + +"What do you think?" + +"If you really want me to, of _course_ I'll stay. Jerry won't mind." + +"You darling... And I used to think you were never going to like me. Do +you remember?" + +"I remember I was a perfect little beast to you." + +"You were. But you do love me a bit now, don't you?" + +"What do you _think_?" + +Anne leaned over her, covering her, supporting herself by the arms of +the garden chair. She brought her face close down, not kissing her, but +looking into her eyes and smiling, teasing in her turn. + +"You love me," said Adeline; "but you'd cut me into little bits if it +would please Jerrold." + +Anne drew back suddenly, straightened herself and turned away. + +"Run off, you monkey, or you'll keep him waiting. I don't want you ... +Wait ... Where's Uncle Robert?" + +"Down at the farm." + +"Bother his old farm. Well--you might ask that father of yours to come +and amuse me." + +"I'll go and get him now. Are you sure you don't want me?" + +"Quite sure, you funny thing." + +Anne ran, to make up for lost time. + + +v + +The sun had come round on to the terrace. Adeline rose from her chair. +John Severn rose, stiffly. + +She had made him go with her to the goldfish pond, made him walk round +the garden, listening to him and not listening, detaching herself +wilfully at every turn, to gather more and more of her blue flowers; +made him come into the drawing-room and look on while she arranged them +exquisitely in the tall Chinese jars. She had brought him out again to +sit on the terrace in the sun; and now, in her restlessness, she was up +again and calling to him to follow. + +"It's baking here. Shall we go into the library?" + +"If you like." He sighed as he said it. + +As long as they stayed out of doors he felt safe and peaceful; but he +was afraid of the library. Once there, shut in with her in that room +which she was consecrating to their communion, heaven only knew what +sort of fool he might make of himself. Last time it was only the sudden +entrance of Robert that had prevented some such manifestation. And +to-day, her smile and her attentive attitude told him that she expected +him to be a fool, that she looked to his folly for her entertainment. + +He had followed her like a dog; and as if he had been a dog her hand +patted a place on the couch beside her. And because he was a fool and +foredoomed he took it. + +There was a silence. Then suddenly he made up his mind. + +"Adeline, I'm very sorry, but I find I've got to go to-morrow." + +"Go? Up to town?" + +"Yes." + +"But--you're coming back again." + +"I'm--afraid--not." + +"My dear John, you haven't been here a week. I thought you were going to +stay with us till your leave was up." + +"So did I. But I find I can't." + +"Whyever not?" + +"Oh--there are all sorts of things to be seen to." + +"Nonsense, what do you suppose Robert will say to you, running off like +this?" + +"Robert will understand." + +"It's more than I do." + +"You can see, can't you, that I'm going because I must, not because I +want to." + +"Well, I think it's horrid of you. I shall miss you frightfully." + +"Yes, you were good enough to say I amused you." + +"You're not amusing me now, my dear ... Are you going to take Anne away +from me too?" + +"Not if you'd like to keep her." + +"Of course I'd like to keep her." + +He paused, brooding, wrenching one of his lean hands with the other. + +"There's one thing I must ask you--" + +"Ask, ask, then." + +"I told you Anne would care for you if you gave her time. She does care +for you." + +"Yes. Odd as it may seem, I really believe she does." + +"Well--don't let her be hurt by it." + +"Hurt? Who's going to hurt her?" + +"You, if you let her throw herself away on you when you don't want her." + +"Have I behaved as if I didn't want her?" + +"You've behaved like an angel. All the same, you frighten me a little. +You've a terrible fascination for the child. Don't use it too much. Let +her feelings alone. Don't work on them for the fun of seeing what she'll +do next. If she tries to break away don't bring her back. Don't jerk her +on the chain. Don't--amuse yourself with Anne." + +"So that's how you think of me?" + +"Oh, you know how I think." + +"Do I? Have I ever known? You say the cruellest things. Is there +anything else I'm not to do to her?" + +"Yes. For God's sake don't tease her about Jerrold." + +"My dear John, you talk as if it was serious. I assure you Jerrold isn't +thinking about Anne." + +"And Anne isn't 'thinking' about Jerrold. They don't think, poor dears. +They don't know what's happening to them. None of us know what's +happening to us till it happens. Then it's too late." + +"Well, I'll promise not to do any of these awful things if you'll tell +me, honestly, why you're going." + +He stared at her. + +"Tell you? You know why. I am going for _the same reason_ that I came. +How can you possibly ask me to stay?" + +"Of course, if you feel like that about it--" + +"You'll say I'd no business to come if I feel like that. But I knew I +wasn't hurting anybody but myself. I knew _you_ were safe. There's never +been anybody but Robert." + +"Never. Never for a minute." + +"I tell you I know that. I always have known it. And I understand it. +What I can't understand is why, when that's that, you make it so hard +for me." + +"Do I make it hard for you?" + +"Damnably." + +"You poor thing. But you'll get over it." + +"I'm not young enough to get over it. Does it look like getting over it? +It's been going on for twenty-two years." + +"Oh come, not all the time, John." + +"Pretty nearly. On and off." + +"More off than on, I think." + +"What does that matter when it's 'on' now? Anyhow I've got to go." + +"Go, if you must. Do the best for yourself, my dear. Only don't say I +made you." + +"I'm not saying anything." + +"Well--I'm sorry." + +All the same her smile declared her profound and triumphant satisfaction +with herself. It remained with her after he had gone. She would rather +he had stayed, following her about, waiting for her, ready to her call, +amusing her; but his going was the finer tribute to her power: the +finest, perhaps, that he could have well paid. She hadn't been prepared +for such a complete surrender. + + +vi + +Something had happened to Eliot. He sulked. Indoors and out, working and +playing, at meal-times and bed-time he sulked. Jerrold said of him that +he sulked in his sleep. + +Two things made his behaviour inexplicable. To begin with, it was +uncalled for. Robert Fielding, urged by John Severn in a last interview, +had given in all along the line. Not only had Eliot leave to stick to +his medicine (which he would have done in any case), but he was to go to +Bart's to work for his doctor's degree when his three years at Cambridge +were ended. His father had made a new will, leaving the estate to +Jerrold and securing to the eldest son an income almost large enough to +make up for the loss. Eliot, whose ultimate aim was research work, now +saw all the ways before him cleared. He had no longer anything to sulk +for. + +Still more mysteriously, his sulking appeared to be related to Anne. He +had left off going for walks alone with her in the fields and woods; he +didn't show her things under his microscope any more. If she leaned over +his shoulder he writhed himself away; if his hand blundered against hers +he drew it back as if her touch burnt him. More often than not he would +go out of the room if she came into it. Yet as long as she was there he +couldn't keep his eyes off her. She would be sitting still, reading, +when she would be aware, again and again, of Eliot's eyes, lifted from +his book to fasten on her. She could feel them following her when she +walked away. + +One wet day in August they were alone together in the schoolroom, +reading. Suddenly Anne felt his eyes on her. Their look was intent, +penetrating, disturbing; it burned at her under his jutting, sombre +eyebrows. + +"Is there anything funny about me?" she said. + +"Funny? No. Why?" + +"Because you keep on looking at me." + +"I didn't know I was looking at you." + +"Well, you were. You're always doing it. And I can't think why." + +"It isn't because I want to." + +He held his book up so that it hid his face. + +"Then don't do it," she said. "You needn't." + +"I shan't," he snarled, savagely, behind his screen. + +But he did it again and again, as if for the life of him he couldn't +help it. There was something about it mysterious and exciting. It made +Anne want to look at Eliot when he wasn't looking at her. + +She liked his blunt, clever face, the half-ugly likeness of his father's +with its jutting eyebrows and jutting chin, its fine grave mouth and +greenish-brown eyes; mouth and eyes that had once been so kind and were +now so queer. Eliot's face made her keep on wondering what it was doing. +She _had_ to look at it. + +One day, when she was looking, their eyes met. She had just time to see +that his mouth had softened as if he were pleased to find her looking at +him. And his eyes were different; not cross, but dark now and unhappy; +they made her feel as if she had hurt him. + +They were in the library. Uncle Robert was there, sitting in his chair +behind them, at the other end of the long room. She had forgotten Uncle +Robert. + +"Oh, Eliot," she said, "have I done anything?" + +"Not that I know of." His face stiffened. + +"You look as if I had. Have I?" + +"Don't talk such putrid rot. As if I cared what you did. Can't you leave +me alone?" + +And he jumped up and left the room. + +And there was Uncle Robert in his chair, watching her, looking kind and +sorry. + +"What's the matter with him?" she said. "Why is he so cross?" + +"You mustn't mind. He doesn't mean it." + +"No, but it's so funny of him. He's only cross with me; and I haven't +done anything." + +"It isn't that." + +"What is it, then? I believe he hates me." + +"No. He doesn't hate you, Anne. He's going through a bad time, that's +all. He can't help being cross." + +"Why can't he? He's got everything he wants." + +"Has he?" + +Uncle Robert was smiling. And this time his smile was for himself. She +didn't understand it. + + +vii + +Anne was going away. She said she supposed now that Eliot would be +happy. + +Grandmamma Severn thought she had been long enough running loose with +those Fielding boys. Grandpapa Everitt agreed with her and they decided +that in September Anne should go to the big girls' college in +Cheltenham. Grandmamma and Aunt Emily had left London and taken a house +in Cheltenham and Anne was to live with them there. + +Colin and she were going in the same week, Colin to his college and Anne +to hers. + +They were discussing this prospect. Colin and Jerrold and Anne in +Colin's room. It was a chilly day in September and Colin was in bed +surrounded by hot water bottles. He had tried to follow Jerrold in his +big jump across the river and had fallen in. He was not ill, but he +hoped he would be, for then he couldn't go back to Cheltenham next week. + +"If it wasn't for the hot water bottles," he said, "I _might_ get a +chill." + +"I wish I could get one," said Anne. "But I can't get anything. I'm so +beastly strong." + +"It isn't so bad for you. You haven't got to live with the girls. It'll +be perfectly putrid in my house now that Jerrold isn't there." + +"Haven't you _any_ friends, Col-Col?" + +"Yes. There's little Rogers. But even he's pretty rotten after Jerry." + +"He would be." + +"And that old ass Rawly says I'll be better this term without Jerrold. +He kept on gassing about fighting your own battles and standing on your +own feet. You never heard such stinking rot." + +"You're lucky it's Cheltenham," Jerrold said, "and not some other rotten +hole. Dad and I'll go over on half-holidays and take you out. You and +Anne." + +"You'll be at Cambridge." + +"Not till next year. And it isn't as if Anne wasn't there." + +"Grannie and Aunt Emily'll ask you every week. I've made them. It'll be +a bit slow, but they're rather darlings." + +"Have they a piano?" Colin asked. + +"Yes. And they'll let you play on it all the time." + +Colin looked happier. But he didn't get his chill, and when the day came +he had to go. + +Jerrold saw Anne off at Wyck station. + +"You'll look after Col-Col, won't you?" he said. "Write and tell me how +he gets on." + +"I'll write every week." + +Jerrold was thoughtful. + +"After all, there's something in that idea of old Rawlings', that I'm +bad for him. He's got to do without me." + +"So have I." + +"You're different. You'll stand it, if you've got to. Colin won't. And +he doesn't chum up with the other chaps." + +"No. But think of me and all those awful girls--after you and Eliot" +(she had forgotten Eliot's sulkiness) "and Uncle Robert. And Grannie and +Aunt Emily after Auntie Adeline." + +"Well, I'm glad Col-Col'll have you sometimes." + +"So'm I... Oh, Jerrold, here's the beastly train." + +It drew up along the platform. + +Anne stood in her carriage, leaning out of the window to him. + +His hand was on the ledge. They looked at each other without speaking. + +The guard whistled. Carriage doors slammed one after another. The train +moved forward. + +Jerrold ran alongside. "I say, you'll let Col-Col play on that piano?" + +Anne was gone. + + + +III + + +ANNE AND JERROLD + +i + + "'Where have you been all the day, Rendal, my son? + Where have you been all the day, my pretty one?...'" + +Five years had passed. It was August, nineteen ten. + +Anne had come again. She sat out on the terrace with Adeline, while +Colin's song drifted out to them through the open window. + +It was her first day, the first time for three years. Anne's calendar +was blank from nineteen seven to nineteen ten. When she was seventeen +she had left Cheltenham and gone to live with Grandpapa Everitt at the +Essex farm. Grandpapa Everitt wanted her more than Grandmamma Severn, +who had Aunt Emily; so Anne had stayed with him all that time. She had +spent it learning to farm and looking after Grandpapa on his bad days. +For the last year of his life all his days had been bad. Now he was +dead, dead three months ago, and Anne had the farm. She was going to +train for five years under the man who had worked it for Grandpapa; +after that she meant to manage it herself. + +She had been trying to tell Aunt Adeline all about it, but you could see +she wasn't interested. She kept on saying "Yes" and "Oh" and "Really"? +in the wrong places. She never could listen to you for long together, +and this afternoon she was evidently thinking of something else, perhaps +of John Severn, who had been home on leave and gone again without coming +to the Fieldings. + + "'I've been to my sweetheart, mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down...'" + +Mournful, and beautiful, Colin's song came through the windows, and Anne +thought of Jerrold who was not there. He was staying in Yorkshire with +some friends of his, the Durhams. He would be back to-morrow. He would +have got away from the Durhams. + + ..."'make my bed soon...'" + +To-morrow. To-morrow. + +"Who are the Durhams, Auntie?" + +"He's Sir Charles Durham. Something important in the Punjaub. Some high +government official. He'll be useful to Jerrold if he gets a job out +there. They're going back in October. I suppose I shall have to ask. +Maisie Durham before they sail." + +Maisie Durham. Maisie Durham. But to-morrow he would have got away. + + "'What will you leave your lover, Rendal, my son? + What will you leave your lover, my pretty one? + A rope to hang her, mother, + A rope to hang her, mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.'" + +"Sing something cheerful, Colin, for Goodness sake," said his mother. +But Colin sang it again. + + "'A rope to hang her'" + +"Bless him, you'd think he'd known all the wicked women that ever were. +My little Col-Col." + +"You like him the best, don't you?" + +"No. Indeed I do not. I like my laughing boy best. You wouldn't catch +Jerry singing a dismal song like that." + +"Darling, you used to say Colin was your favourite." + +"No, my dear. Never. Never. It was always Jerrold. Ever since he was +born. He never cried when he was a baby. Colin was always crying." + +"Poor Col-Col." + +"There you are. Nobody'll ever say, 'Poor Jerrold'. I like happy people, +Anne. In this tiresome world it's people's duty to be happy." + +"If it was, would they be? Don't look at me as if I wasn't." + +"I wasn't thinking of you, ducky... You might tell Pinkney to take _all_ +those tea-things off the terrace and put them _back_ into the lounge." + + +ii + +The beech-trees stood in a half ring at the top of the highest field. +Jerrold had come back. He and Anne sat in the bay of the beeches, +looking out over the hills. + +Curve after curve of many-coloured hills, rolling together, flung off +from each other, an endless undulation. Rounded heads carrying a clump +of trees like a comb; long steep groins packed with tree-tops; raking +necks hog-maned with stiff plantations. Slopes that spread out fan-wise, +opened wide wings. An immense stretching and flattening of arcs up to +the straight blue wall on the horizon. A band of trees stood up there +like a hedge. + +Calm, clean spaces emerging, the bright, sharp-cut pattern of the +fields; squares and fans and pointed triangles, close fitted; emerald +green of the turnips; yellow of the charlock lifted high and clear; red +brown and pink and purple of ploughed land and fallows; red gold of the +wheat and white green of the barley; shimmering in a wash of thin air. + +Where Anne and Jerrold sat, green pastures, bitten smooth by the sheep, +flowed down below them in long ridges like waves. On the right the +bright canary coloured charlock brimmed the field. Its flat, vanilla and +almond scent came to them. + +"What's Yorkshire like?" + +"Not a patch on this place. I can't think what there is about it that +makes you feel so jolly happy." + +"But you'd always be happy, Jerrold, anywhere." + +"Not like that. I mean a queer, uncanny feeling that you sort of can't +make out." + +"I know. I know... There's nothing on earth that gets you like the smell +of charlock." + +Anne tilted up her nose and sniffed delicately. + +"Fancy seeing this country suddenly for the first time," he said. + +"There's such a lot of it. You wouldn't see it properly. It takes ages +just to tell one hill from another." + +He looked at her. She could feel him meditating, considering. + +"I say, I wonder what it would feel like seeing each other for the first +time." + +"Not half so nice as seeing each other now. Why, we shouldn't remember +any of the jolly things we've done: together." + +He had seen Maisie Durham for the first time. She wondered whether that +had made him think of it. + +"No, but the effect might be rather stunning--I mean of seeing _you_." + +"It wouldn't. And you'd be nothing but a big man with a face I rather +liked. I suppose I should like your face. We shouldn't _know_ each +other, Jerrold." + +"No more we should. It would be like not knowing Dad or Mummy or Colin. +A thing you can't conceive." + +"It would be like not knowing anything at all ... Of course, the best +thing would be both." + +"Both?" + +"Knowing each other and not knowing." + +"You can't have it both ways," he said. + +"Oh, can't you! You don't half know me as it is, and I don't half know +you. We might both do anything any day. Things that would make each +other jump." + +"What sort of things?" + +"That's the exciting part of it--we wouldn't know." + +"I believe you _could_, Anne--make me jump." + +"Wait till I get out to India." + +"You're really going?" + +"Really going. Daddy may send for me any day." + +"I may be sent there. Then we'll go out together." + +"Will Maisie Durham be going too?" + +"O Lord no. Not with us. At least I hope not ... Poor little Maisie, I +was a beast to say that." + +"Is she little?" + +"No, rather big. But you think of her as little. Only I don't think of +her." + +They stood up; they stood close; looking at each other, laughing. As he +laughed his eyes took her in, from head to feet, wondering, admiring. + +Anne's face and body had the same forward springing look. In their very +stillness they somehow suggested movement. Her young breasts sprang +forwards, sharp pointed. Her eyes had no sliding corner glances. He was +for ever aware of Anne's face turning on its white neck to look at him +straight and full, her black-brown eyes shining and darkening and +shining under the long black brushes of her eyebrows. Even her nose +expressed movement, a sort of rhythm. It rose in a slender arch, raked +straight forward, dipped delicately and rose again in a delicately +questing tilt. This tilt had the delightful air of catching up and +shortening the curl of her upper lip. The exquisite lower one sprang +forward, sharp and salient from the little dent above her innocent, +rounded chin. Its edge curled slightly forward in a line firm as ivory +and fine as the edge of a flower. As long as he lived he would remember +the way of it. + +And she, she was aware of his body, slender and tense under his white +flannels. It seemed to throb with the power it held in, prisoned in the +smooth, tight muscles. His eyes showed the colour of dark hyacinths, set +in his clear, sun-browned skin. He smiled down at her, and his mouth and +little fawn brown moustache followed the tilted shadow of his nostrils. + +Suddenly her whole body quivered as if his had touched it. And when she +looked at him she had the queer feeling that she saw him for the first +time. Never before like that. Never before. + +But to him she was the same Anne. He knew her face as he knew his +mother's face or Colin's. He knew, he remembered all her ways. + +And this was not what he wanted. He wanted some strange wonder and +excitement; he wanted to find it in Anne and in nobody but Anne, and he +couldn't find it. He wanted to be in love with Anne and he wasn't. She +was too near him, too much a part of him, too well-known, too +well-remembered. She made him restless and impatient, looking, looking +for the strangeness, the mystery he wanted and couldn't find. + +If only he could have seen her suddenly for the first time. + + +iii + +It was extraordinary how happy it made her to be with Aunt Adeline, +walking slowly, slowly, with her round the garden, stretched out beside +her on the terrace, following her abrupt moves from the sun into the +shade and back again; or sitting for hours with her in the big darkened +bedroom when Adeline had one of the bad headaches that attacked her now, +brushing her hair, and putting handkerchiefs soaked in eau-de-cologne on +her hot forehead. + +Extraordinary, because this inactivity did violence to Anne's nature; +besides, Auntie Adeline behaved as if you were uninteresting and +unimportant, not attending to a word you said. Yet her strength lay in +her inconsistency. One minute her arrogance ignored you and the next she +came humbly and begged for your caresses; she was dependent, like a +child, on your affection. Anne thought that pathetic. And there was +always her fascination. That was absolute; above logic and morality, +irrefutable as the sweetness of a flower. Everybody felt it, even the +servants whom she tormented with her incalculable wants. Jerrold and +Colin, even Eliot, now that he was grown-up, felt it. As for Uncle +Robert he was like a young man in the beginning of first love. + +Adeline judged people by their attitude to her. Anne, whether she +listened to her or not, was her own darling. Her husband and John Severn +were adorable, Major Markham of Wyck Wold and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, +who admired her, were perfect dears, Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, who +didn't, was that silly old thing. Resist her and she felt no mean +resentment; you simply dropped out of her scene. Thus her world was +peopled with her adorers. + +Anne couldn't have told you whether she felt the charm on its own +account, or whether the pleasure of being with her was simply part of +the blessed state of being at Wyck-on-the-Hill. Enough that Auntie +Adeline was there where Uncle Robert and Eliot and Colin and Jerrold +were; she belonged to them; she belonged to the house and garden; she +stood with the flowers. + +Anne was walking with her now, gathering roses for the house. The garden +was like a room shut in by the clipped yew walls, and open to the sky. +The sunshine poured into it; the flagged walks were pale with heat. + +Anne's cat, Nicky, was there, the black Persian that Jerrold had given +her last birthday. He sat in the middle of the path, on his haunches, +his forelegs straight and stiff, planted together. His face had a look +of sweet and solemn meditation. + +"Oh Nicky, oh you darling!" she said. + +When she stroked him he got up, arching his back and carrying his tail +in a flourishing curve, like one side of a lyre; he rubbed against her +ankles. A white butterfly flickered among the blue larkspurs; when Nicky +saw it he danced on his hind legs, clapping his forepaws as he tried to +catch it. But the butterfly was too quick for him. Anne picked him up +and he flattened himself against her breast, butting under her chin with +his smooth round head in his loving way. + +And as Adeline wouldn't listen to her Anne talked to the cat. + +"Clever little thing, he sees everything, all the butterflies and the +dicky-birds and the daddy-long-legs. Don't you, my pretty one?" + +"What's the good of talking to the cat?" said Adeline. "He doesn't +understand a word you say." + +"He doesn't understand the words, he says, but he feels the feeling ... +He was the most beautiful of all the pussies, he was, he was." + +"Nonsense. You're throwing yourself away on that absurd animal, for all +the affection you'll get out of him." + +"I shall get out just what I put in. He expects to be talked to." + +"So do I." + +"I've been trying to talk to you all afternoon and you won't listen. And +you don't know how you can hurt Nicky's feelings. He's miserable if I +don't tell him he's a beautiful pussy the minute he comes into my room. +He creeps away under the washstand and broods. We take these darling +things and give them little souls and hearts, and we've no business to +hurt them. And they've such a tiny time to live, too... Look at him, +sitting up to be carried, like a child." + +"Oh wait, my dear, till you _have_ a child. You ridiculous baby." + +"Oh come, Jerrold's every bit as gone on him." + +"You're a ridiculous pair," said Adeline. + +"If Nicky purred round _your_ legs, you'd love him, too," said Anne. + + +iv + +Uncle Robert was not well. He couldn't eat the things he used to eat; he +had to have fish or chicken and milk and beef-tea and Benger's food. +Jerrold said it was only indigestion and he'd be all right in a day or +two. But you could see by the way he walked now that there was something +quite dreadfully wrong. He went slowly, slowly, as if every step tired +him out. + +"Sorry, Jerrold, to be so slow." + +But Jerrold wouldn't see it. + +They had gone down to the Manor Farm, he and Jerrold and Anne. He wanted +to show Jerrold the prize stock and what heifers they could breed from +next year. "I should keep on with the short horns. You can't do better," +he said. + +Then they had gone up the fields to see if the wheat was ready for +cutting yet. And he had kept on telling Jerrold what crops were to be +sown after the wheat, swedes to come first, and vetch after the swedes, +to crowd out the charlock. + +"You'll have to keep the charlock down, Jerrold, or it'll kill the +crops. You'll have the devil of a job." He spoke as though Jerrold had +the land already and he was telling him the things he wanted him to +remember. + +They came back up the steep pasture, very slowly, Uncle Robert leaning +on Jerrold's arm. They sat down to rest under the beech-trees at the +top. They looked at the landscape, the many-coloured hills, rolling +together, flung off from each other, an endless undulation. + +"Beautiful country. Beautiful country," said Uncle Robert as if he had +never seen it before. + +"You should see _my_ farm," Anne said. "It's as flat as a chess-board +and all squeezed up by the horrid town. Grandpapa sold a lot of it for +building. I wish I could sell the rest and buy a farm in the Cotswolds. +Do you ever have farms to sell, Uncle Robert?" + +"Well, not to sell. To let, perhaps, if a tenant goes. You can have the +Barrow Farm when old Sutton dies. He can't last long. But," he went on, +"you'll find it very different farming here." + +"How different?" + +"Well, in some of those fields you'll have to fight the charlock all the +time. And in some the soil's hard. And in some you've got to plough +across the sun because of the slope of the land... Remember, Jerrold, +Anne's to have the Barrow Farm, if she wants it, when Sutton dies." + +Jerrold laughed. "My dear father, I shall be in India." + +"I'll remind you, Uncle Robert." + +Uncle Robert smiled. "I'll tell Barker to remember," he said. Barker was +his agent. + +It was as if he were thinking that when Sutton died he might not be +there. And he had said that Sutton wouldn't last long. Anne looked at +Jerrold. But Jerrold's face was happy. He didn't see it. + +They left Uncle Robert in the library, drinking hot water for tea. + +"Jerrold," Anne said, "I'm sure Uncle Robert's ill." + +"Oh no. It's only indigestion. He'll be as right as rain in a day or +two." + + +V + +Anne's cat Nicky was dying. + +Jerrold struggled with his sleep, pushing it back and back before him, +trying to remember. + +There was something; something that had hung over him the night before. +He had been afraid to wake and find it there. Something--. + +Now he remembered. + +Nicky was dying and Anne was unhappy. That was what it was; that was +what he had hated to wake to, Anne's unhappiness and the little cat. + +There was nothing else. Nothing wrong with Daddy--only indigestion. He +had had it before. + +The room was still dark, but the leaded squares of the window lattices +barred a sky pale with dawn. In her room across the passage Anne would +be sitting up with Nicky. He remembered now that he had to get up early +to make her some tea. + +He lit a candle and went to her door to see if she were still awake. Her +voice answered his gentle tapping, "Who's there?" + +"Me. Jerrold. May I come in?" + +"Yes. But don't bring the light in. He's sleeping." + +He put out the candle and made his way to her. Against the window panes +he could see the outline of her body sitting upright in a chair. She +glimmered there in her white wrapper and he made out something black +stretched straight and still in her lap. He sat down in the window-seat +and watched. + +The room was mysterious, full of dusk air that thinned as the dawn +stirred in it palpably, waking first Anne's white bed, a strip of white +cornice and a sheet of watery looking-glass. Nicky's saucer of milk +gleamed white on the dark floor at Anne's feet. The pale ceiling +lightened; and with a sliding shimmer of polished curves the furniture +rose up from the walls. Presently it stood clear, wine-coloured, shining +in the strange, pure light. + +And in the strange, pure light he saw Anne, in her white wrapper with +the great rope of her black hair, plaited, hanging down her back. The +little black cat lay in her white lap, supported by her arm. + +She smiled at Jerrold strangely. She spoke and her voice was low and +strange. + +"He's asleep, Jerry. He kept on looking at me and mewing. Then he tried +to climb into my lap and couldn't. And I took him up and he was quiet +then. I think he was pleased that I took him ... I've given him the +morphia pill and I don't think he's in pain. He'll die in his sleep." + +"Yes. He'll die in his sleep." + +He hardly knew what he was saying. He was looking at Anne, and it was as +if now, at last, he saw her for the first time. This, this was what he +wanted, this mysterious, strangely smiling Anne, this white Anne with +the great plaited rope of black hair, who belonged to the night and the +dawn. + +"I'm going to get you some tea," he said. + +He went down to the kitchen where everything had been left ready for him +over-night. He lit the gas-ring and made the tea and brought it to her +with cake and bread and butter on a little tray. He set it down beside +her on the window-seat. But Anne could neither eat nor drink. She cried +out to him. + +"Oh, Jerry, look at him. Do you think he's dying now?" + +He knelt down and looked. Nicky's eyes were two slits of glaze between +half-shut lids. His fur stood up on his bulging, frowning forehead. His +little, flat cat's face was drawn to a point with a look of helpless +innocence and anguish. His rose-leaf tongue showed between his teeth as +he panted. + +"Yes. I'm awfully afraid he's dying." + +They waited half an hour, an hour. They never knew how long. Once he +said to her, "Would you rather I went or stayed?" And she said, "Stayed, +if you don't mind." + +Through the open window, from the fields of charlock warm in the risen +sun, the faint, smooth scent came to them. + +Then Nicky began to cough with a queer quacking sound. Jerrold went to +her, upsetting the saucer as he came. + +"It's his milk," she said. "He couldn't drink it." And with that she +burst into tears. + +"Oh, Anne, don't cry. Don't cry, Anne darling." + +He put his arm round her. He laid his hand on her hair and stroked it. +He stooped suddenly and kissed her face; gently, quietly, because of the +dead thing in her lap. + +It was as if he had kissed her for the first time. + +For one instant she had her arm round his neck and clung to him, hiding +her face on his shoulder. Then suddenly she loosed herself and stood up +before him, holding out the body of the little cat. + +"Take him away, please, Jerry, so that I don't see him." + +He took him away. + +All day the sense of kissing her remained with him, and all night, with +the scent of her hair, the sweet rose-scent of her flesh, the touch of +her smooth rose-leaf skin. That was Anne, that strangeness, that beauty +of the clear, cold dawn, that scent, that warm sweet smoothness, that +clinging of passionate arms. And he had kissed her gently, quietly, as +you kiss a child, as you kiss a young, small animal. + +He wanted to kiss her close, pressing down on her mouth, deep into her +sweet flesh; to hold her body tight, tight, crushed in his arms. If it +hadn't been for Nicky that was the way he would have kissed her. + +To-morrow, to-morrow, he would kiss Anne that way. + + + +IV + + +ROBERT + +i + +But when to-morrow came he did not kiss her. He was annoyed with Anne +because she insisted on taking a gloomy view of his father's illness. + +The doctors couldn't agree about it. Dr. Ransome of Wyck said it was +gastritis. Dr. Harper of Cheltenham said it was colitis. He had had that +before and had got better. Now he was getting worse, fast. For the last +three days he couldn't keep down his chicken and fish. Yesterday not +even his milk. To-day, not even his ice-water. Then they both said it +was acute gastritis. + +"He's never been like this before, Jerrold." + +"No. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to get better. People with +acute gastritis do get better. It's enough to make him die, everybody +insisting that he's going to. And it's rot sending for Eliot." + +That was what Anne had done. + +Eliot had written to her from London: + 10 Welbeck St., _Sept. 35th, 1910._ + + My dear Anne: + + I wish you'd tell me how Father really is. Nobody but you has + any intelligence that matters. Between Mother's wails and + Jerrold's optimism I don't seem to be getting the truth. If it's + serious I'll come down at once. + + Always yours, + + Eliot. + +And Anne had answered: + + My dear Eliot, + + It _is_ serious. Dr. Ransome and Dr. Harper say so. They think + now it's acute gastritis. I wish you'd come down. Jerrold is + heart-breaking. He won't see it; because he couldn't bear it if + he did. I know Auntie wants you. + + Always very affectionately yours, + + Anne. + +She addressed the letter to Dr. Eliot Fielding, for Eliot had taken his +degree. + +And on that to-morrow of Jerrold's Eliot had come. Jerrold told him he +was a perfect idiot, rushing down like that, as if Daddy hadn't an hour +to live. + +"You'll simply terrify him," he said. "He hasn't got a chance with all +you people grousing and croaking round him." + +And he went off to play in the lawn tennis tournament at Medlicote as a +protest against the general pessimism. His idea seemed to be that if he, +Jerrold, could play in a lawn tennis tournament, his father couldn't be +seriously ill. + +"It's perfectly awful of Jerrold," his mother said. "I can't make him +out. He adores his father, yet he behaves as if he hadn't any feeling." + +She and Anne were sitting in the lounge after luncheon, waiting for +Eliot to come from his father's room. + +"Didn't you _tell_ him, Anne?" + +"I did everything I know.... But darling, he isn't unfeeling. He does it +because he can't bear to think Uncle Robert won't get better. He's +trying to make himself believe he will. I think he does believe it. But +if he stayed away from the tournament that would mean he didn't." + +"If only _I_ could. But I must. I _must_ believe it if I'm not to go +mad. I don't know what I shall do if he doesn't get better. I can't live +without him. It's been so perfect, Anne. It can't come to an end like +this. It can't happen. It would be too cruel." + +"It would," Anne said. But she thought: "It just will happen. It's +happening now." + +"Here's Eliot," she said. + +Eliot came down the stairs. Adeline went to him. + +"Oh Eliot, what do you think of him?" + +Eliot put her off. "I can't tell you yet." + +"You think he's very bad?" + +"Very." + +"But you don't think there isn't any hope?" + +"I can't tell yet. There may be. He wants you to go to him. Don't talk +much to him. Don't let him talk. And don't, whatever you do, let him +move an inch." + +Adeline went upstairs. Anne and Eliot were alone. "You _can_ tell," she +said. "You don't think there's any hope." + +"I don't. There's something quite horribly wrong. His temperature's a +hundred and three." + +"Is that bad?" + +"Very." + +"I do wish Jerry hadn't gone." + +"So do I." + +"It'll be worse for him, Eliot, than for any of us when he knows." + +"I know. But he's always been like that, as long as I can remember. He +simply can't stand trouble. It's the only thing he funks. And his +funking it wouldn't matter if he'd stand and face it. But he runs away. +He's running away now. Say what you like, it's a sort of cowardice." + +"It's his only fault." + +"I know it is. But it's a pretty serious one, Anne. And he'll have to +pay for it. The world's chock full of suffering and all sorts of +horrors, and you can't go turning your back to them as Jerrold does +without paying for it. Why, he won't face anything that's even a little +unpleasant. He won't listen if you try to tell him. He won't read a book +that hasn't a happy ending. He won't go to a play that isn't a comedy... +It's an attitude I can't understand. I don't like horrors any more than +he does; but when I hear about them I want to go straight where they are +and do something to stop them. That's what I chose my profession for." + +"I know. Because you're so sorry. So sorry. But Jerry's sorry too. So +sorry that he can't bear it." + +"But he's got to bear it. There it is and he's got to take it. He's only +making things worse for himself by holding out and refusing. Jerrold +will never be any good till he _has_ taken it. Till he's suffered +damnably." + +"I don't want him to suffer. I don't want it. I can't bear him to bear +it." + +"He must. He's got to." + +"I'd do anything to save him. But I can't." + +"You can't. And you mustn't try to. It would be the best thing that +could happen to him." + +"Oh no, not to Jerry." + +"Yes. To Jerry. If he's ever to be any good. You don't want him to be a +moral invalid, do you?" + +"No... Oh Eliot, that's Uncle Robert's door." + +Upstairs the door opened and shut and Adeline came to the head of the +stairs. + +"Oh Eliot, come quick----" + +Eliot rushed upstairs. And Anne heard Adeline sobbing hysterically and +crying out to him. + +"I can't--I can't. I can not bear it!" + +She saw her trail off along the gallery to her room; she heard her lock +herself in. She had every appearance of running away from something. +From something she could not bear. Half an hour passed before Eliot came +back to Anne. + +"What was it?" she said. + +"What I thought. Gastric ulcer. He's had a haemorrhage." + +That was what Aunt Adeline had run away from. + +"Look here, Anne, I've got to send Scarrott in the car for Ransome. Then +he'll have to go on to Cheltenham to fetch Colin." + +"Colin?" This was the end then. + +"Yes. He'd better come. And I want you to do something. I want you to +drive over to Medlicote and bring Jerrold back. It's beastly for you. +But you'll do it, won't you?" + +"I'll do anything." + +It was the beastliest thing she had ever had to do, but she did it. + +From where she drew up in the drive at Medlicote she could see the +tennis courts. She could see Jerrold playing in the men's singles. He +stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was +turned to her as he stood. + +She heard him shout. She heard him laugh. She saw him turn to come up +the court, facing her. + +And when he saw her, he knew. + + +ii + +He had waited ten minutes in the gallery outside his father's room. +Eliot had asked Anne to go in and help him while Jerrold stood by the +door to keep his mother out. She was no good, Eliot said. She lost her +head just when he wanted her to do things. You could have heard her all +over the house crying out that she couldn't bear it. + +She opened her door and looked out. When she saw Jerrold she came to +him, slowly, supporting herself by the gallery rail. Her eyes were sore +with crying and there was a flushed thickening about the edges of her +mouth. + +"So you've come back," she said. "You might go in and tell me how he +is." + +"Haven't you seen him?" + +"Of course I've seen him. But I'm afraid, Jerrold. It was awful, awful, +the haemorrhage. You can't think how awful. I daren't go in and see it +again. I shouldn't be a bit of good if I did. I should only faint, or be +ill or something. I simply can not bear it." + +"You mustn't go in," he said. + +"Who's with him?" + +"Eliot and Anne." + +"Anne?" + +"Yes." + +"Jerrold, to think that Anne should be with him and me not." + +"Well, she'll be all right. She can stand things." + +"It's all very well for Anne. He isn't _her_ husband." + +"You'd better go away, Mother." + +"Not before you tell me how he is. Go in, Jerrold." + +He knocked and went in. + +His father was sitting up in his white, slender bed, raised on Eliot's +arm. He saw his face, strained and smoothed with exhaustion, sallow +white against the pillows, the back-drawn-mouth, the sharp, peaked nose, +the iron grey hair, pointed with sweat, sticking to the forehead. A face +of piteous, tired patience, waiting. He saw Eliot's face, close, close +beside it by the edge of the pillow, grave and sombre and intent. + +Anne was crossing the room from the bed to the washstand. Her face was +very white but she had an air of great competence and composure. She +carried a white basin brimming with a reddish froth. He saw little red +specks splashed on the sleeve of her white linen gown. He shuddered. + +Eliot made a sign to him and he went back to the door where his mother +waited. + +"Is he better?" she whispered. "Can I come in?" + +Jerrold shook his head. "Better not--yet." + +"You'll send for me if--if--" + +"Yes." + +He heard her trailing away along the gallery. He went into the room. He +stood at the foot of the bed and stared, stared at his father lying +there in Eliot's arms. He would have liked to have been in Eliot's +place, close to him, close, holding him. As it was he could do nothing +but stand and look at him with that helpless, agonized stare. He _had_ +to look at him, to look and look, punishing himself with sight for not +having seen. + +His eyes felt hot and brittle; they kept on filling with tears, burned +themselves dry and filled again. His hand clutched the edge of the +footrail as if only so he could keep his stand there. + +A stream of warm air came through the open windows. Everything in the +room stood still in it, unnaturally still, waiting. He was aware of the +pattern of the window curtains. Blue parrots perched on brown branches +among red flowers on a white ground; it all hung very straight and +still, waiting. + +Anne looked at him and spoke. She was standing beside the bed now, +holding the clean basin and a towel, ready. + +"Jerrold, you might go and get some more ice. It's in the bucket in the +bath-room. Break it up into little pieces, like that. You split it with +a needle." + +He went to the bath-room, moving like a sleepwalker, wrapped in his +dream-like horror. He found the ice, he broke it into little pieces, +like that. He was very careful and conscientious about the size, and +grateful to Anne for giving him something to do. Then he went back again +and took up his station at the foot of the bed and waited. His father +still lay back on his pillow, propped by Eliot's arm. His hands were +folded on his chest above the bedclothes. + +Anne still stood by the bed holding her basin and her towel ready. From +time to time they gave him little pieces of ice to suck. + +Once he opened his eyes, looked round the room and spoke. "Is your +mother there?" + +"Do you want her?" Eliot said. + +"No. It'll only upset her. Don't let her come in." + +He closed his eyes and opened them again. + +"Is that Anne?" + +"Yes. Who did you think it was?" + +"I don't know...I'm sorry, Anne." + +"Darling--" the word broke from a tender inarticulate sound she made. + +Then: "Jerrold--," he said. + +Jerrold came closer. His father's right arm unfolded itself and +stretched out towards him along the bed. + +Anne whispered, "Take his hand." Jerrold took it. He could feel it +tremble as he touched it. + +"It's all right, Jerry," he said. "It's all right." He gave a little +choking cough. His eyes darkened with a sudden anxiety, a fear. His hand +slackened. His head sank forward. Anne came between them. Jerrold felt +the slight thrust of her body pushing him aside. He saw her arms +stretched out, and the white gleam of the basin, then, the haemorrhage, +jet after jet. Then his father's face tilted up on Eliot's arm, very +white, and Anne stooping over him tenderly, and her hand with the towel, +wiping the red foam from his lips. + +Then eyes glazed between half-shut lids, mouth open, and the noise of +death. + +Eliot's arm laid down its burden. He got up and put his hand on +Jerrold's shoulder and led him out of the room. "Go out into the air," +he said. "I'll tell Mother." + +Jerrold staggered downstairs, and through the hall and out into the +blinding sunshine. + +Far down the avenue he could hear the whirring of the car coming back +from Cheltenham; the lines of the beech trees opened fan-wise to let it +through. He saw Colin sitting up beside Scarrott. + +Above his head a lattice ground and clattered. Somebody was going +through the front rooms, shutting the windows and pulling down the +blinds. + +Jerrold turned back into the house to meet Colin there. + +Upstairs his father's door opened and shut softly and Anne came out. She +moved along the gallery to her room. Between the dark rails he could see +her white skirt, and her arm, hanging, and the little specks of red +splashed on the white sleeve. + + +iii + +Jerrold was afraid of Anne, and he saw no end to his fear. He had been +dashed against the suffering he was trying to put away from him and the +shock of it had killed in one hour his young adolescent passion. She +would be for ever associated with that suffering. He would never see +Anne without thinking of his father's death. He would never think of his +father's death without seeing Anne. He would see her for ever through an +atmosphere of pain and horror, moving as she had moved in his father's +room. He couldn't see her any other way. This intolerable memory of her +effaced all other memories, memories of the child Anne with the rabbit, +of the young, happy Anne who walked and rode and played with him, of the +strange, mysterious Anne he had found yesterday in her room at dawn. +That Anne belonged to a time he had done with. There was nothing left +for him but the Anne who had come to tell him his father was dying, who +had brought him to his father's death-bed, who had bound herself up +inseparably with his death, who only moved from the scene of it to +appear dressed in black and carrying the flowers for his funeral. + +She was wrapped round and round with death and death, nothing but death, +and with Jerrold's suffering. When he saw her he suffered again. And as +his way had always been to avoid suffering, he avoided Anne. His eyes +turned from her if he saw her coming. He spoke to her without looking at +her. He tried not to think of her. When he had gone he would try not to +remember. + +His one idea was to go, to get away from the place his father had died +in and from the people who had seen him die. He wanted new unknown +faces, new unknown voices that would not remind him------ + +Ten days after his father's death the letter came from John Severn. He +wrote: + +"... I'm delighted about Sir Charles Durham. You are a lucky devil. Any +chap Sir Charles takes a fancy to is bound to get on. He can't help +himself. You're not afraid of hard work, and I can tell you we give our +Assistant Commissioners all they want and a lot more. + +"It'll be nice if you bring Anne out with you. If you're stationed +anywhere near us we ought to give her the jolliest time in her life +between us." + +"But Jerrold," said Adeline when she had read this letter. "You're not +going out _now_. You must wire and tell him so." + +"Why not now?" + +"Because, my dear boy, you've got the estate and you must stay and look +after it." + +"Barker'll look after it. That's what he's there for." + +"Nonsense, Jerrold. There's no need for you to go out to India." + +"There _is_ need. I've got to go." + +"You haven't. There's every need for you to stop where you are. Eliot +will be going abroad if Sir Martin Crozier takes him on. And if Colin +goes into the diplomatic service Goodness knows where he'll be sent to." + +"Colin won't be sent anywhere for another four years." + +"No. But he'll be at Cheltenham or Cambridge half the time. I must have +one son at home." + +"Sorry, Mother. But I can't stand it here. I've got to go, and I'm +going." + +To all her arguments and entreaties he had one answer: He had got to go +and he was going. + +Adeline left him and went to look for Eliot whom she found in his room +packing to go back to London. She came sobbing to Eliot. + +"It's too dreadfully hard. As if it weren't bad enough to lose my +darling husband I must lose all my sons. Not one of you will stay with +me. And there's Anne going off with Jerrold. _She_ may have him with her +and I mayn't. She's taken everything from me. You'd have said if a +wife's place was anywhere it was with her dying husband. But no. _She_ +was allowed to be with him and _I_ was turned out of his room." + +"My dear Mother, you know you weren't." + +"I _was_. You turned me out yourself, Eliot, and had Anne in." + +"Only because you couldn't stand it and she could." + +"I daresay. She hadn't the same feelings." + +"She had her own feelings, anyhow, only she controlled them. She stood +it because she never thought of her feelings. She only thought of what +she could do to help. She was magnificent." + +"Of course you think so, because you're in love with her. She must take +you, too. As if Jerrold wasn't enough." + +"She hasn't taken me. She probably won't if I ask her. You shouldn't say +those things, Mother. You don't know what you're talking about." + +"I know I'm the most unhappy woman in the world. How am I going to live? +I can't stand it if Jerry goes." + +"He's got to go, Mother." + +"He hasn't. Jerrold's place is here. He's got a duty and a +responsibility. Your dear father didn't leave him the estate for him to +let it go to wrack and ruin. It's most cruel and wrong of him." + +"He can't do anything else. Don't you see why he wants to go? He can't +stand the place without Father." + +"I've got to stand it. So he may." + +"Well, he won't, that's all. He simply funks it." + +"He always was an arrant coward where trouble was concerned. He doesn't +think of other people and how bad it is for them. He leaves me when I +want him most." + +"It's hard on you, Mother; but you can't stop him. And I don't think you +ought to try." + +"Oh, everybody tells me what _I_ ought to do. My children can do as they +like. So can Anne. She and Jerrold can go off to India and amuse +themselves as if nothing had happened and it's all right." + +But Anne didn't go off to India. + +When she spoke to Jerrold about going with him his hard, unhappy face +showed her that he didn't want her. + +"You'd rather I didn't go," she said gently. + +"It isn't that, Anne. It isn't that I don't want you. It's--it's simply +that I want to get away from here, to get away from everything that +reminds me--I shall go off my head if I've got to remember every minute, +every time I see somebody who--I want to make a clean break and grow a +new memory." + +"I understand. You needn't tell me." + +"Mother doesn't. I wish you'd make her see it." + +"I'll try. But it's all right, Jerrold. I won't go." + +"Of course you'll go. Only you won't think me a brute if I don't take +you out with me?" + +"I'm not going out with you. In fact, I don't think I'm going at all. I +only wanted to because of going out together and because of the chance +of seeing you when you got leave. I only thought of the heavenly times +we might have had." + +"Don't--don't, Anne." + +"No, I won't. After all, I shouldn't care a rap about Ambala if you +weren't there. And you may be stationed miles away. I'd rather go back +to Ilford and do farming. Ever so much rather. India would really have +wasted a lot of time." + +"Oh, Anne, I've spoilt all your pleasure." + +"No, you haven't. There isn't any pleasure to spoil--now." + +"What a brute--what a cad you must think me." + +"I don't, Jerry. It's not your fault. Things have just happened. And you +see, I understand. I felt the same about Auntie Adeline after Mother +died. I didn't want to see her because she reminded me--and yet, really, +I loved her all the time." + +"You won't go back on me for it?" + +"I wouldn't go back on you whatever you did. And you mustn't keep on +thinking I _want_ to go to India. I don't care a rap about India itself. +I hate Anglo-Indians and I simply loathe hot places. And Daddy doesn't +want me out there, really. I shall be much happier on my farm. And it'll +save a lot of expense, too. Just think what my outfit and passage would +have cost." + +"You wouldn't have cared what it cost if--" + +"There isn't any if. I'm not lying, really." Not lying. Not lying. She +would have given up more than India to save Jerrold that pang of memory. +Only, when it was all over and he had sailed without her, she realized +in one wounding flash that what she had given up was Jerrold himself. + + + +V + + +ELIOT AND ANNE + +i + +Anne did not go back to her Ilford farm at once. Adeline had made that +impossible. + +At the prospect of Anne's going her resentment died down as suddenly as +it had risen. She forgot that Anne had taken her sons' affection and her +place beside her husband's deathbed. And though she couldn't help +feeling rather glad that Jerrold had gone to India without Anne, she was +sorry for her. She loved her and she meant to keep her. She said she +simply could not bear it if Anne left her, and _was_ it the time to +choose when she wanted her as she had never wanted her before? She had +nobody to turn to, as Anne knew. Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams and +people were all very well; but they were outsiders. + +"It's the inside people that I want now, Anne. You're deep inside, +dear." + +Yes, of course she had relations. But relations were no use. They were +all wrapped up in their own tiresome affairs, and there wasn't one of +them she cared for as she cared for Anne. + +"I couldn't care more if you were my own daughter. Darling Robert felt +about you just the same. You _can't_ leave me." + +And Anne didn't. She never could resist unhappiness. She thought: "I was +glad enough to stop with her through all the happy times. I'd be a +perfect beast to go and leave her now when she's miserable and hasn't +got anybody." + +It would have been better for Anne if she could have gone. Robert +Fielding's death and Jerrold's absence were two griefs that inflamed +each other; they came together to make one immense, intolerable wound. +And here at Wyck, she couldn't move without coming upon something that +touched it and stung it to fresh pain. But Anne was not like Jerrold, to +turn from what she loved because it hurt her. For as long as she could +remember all her happiness had come to her at Wyck. If unhappiness came +now, she had got, as Eliot said, "to take it." + +And so she stayed on through the autumn, then over Christmas to the New +Year; this time because of Colin who was suffering from depression. +Colin had never got over his father's death and Jerrold's going; and the +last thing Jerrold had said to her before he went was; "You'll look +after Col-Col, won't you? Don't let him go grousing about by himself." + +Jerrold had always expected her to look after Colin. At seventeen there +was still something piteous and breakable about him, something that +clung to you for help. Eliot said that if Colin didn't look out he'd be +a regular neurotic. But he owned that Anne was good for him. + +"I don't know what you do to him, but he's better when you're there." + +Eliot was the one who appeared to have recovered first. He met the shock +of his father's death with a defiant energy and will. + +He was working now at bacteriology under Sir Martin Crozier. Covered +with a white linen coat, in a white-washed room of inconceivable +cleanness, surrounded by test-tubes and mixing jars, Eliot spent the +best part of the day handling the germs of the deadliest diseases; +making cultures, examining them under the microscope; preparing +vaccines. He went home to the brown velvety, leathery study in his +Welbeck Street flat to write out his notes, or read some monograph on +inoculation; or he dined with a colleague and talked to him about +bacteria. + +At this period of his youth Eliot had more than ever the appearance of +inhuman preoccupation. His dark, serious face detached itself with a +sort of sullen apathy from the social scene. He seemed to have no keen +interests beyond his slides and mixing jars and test-tubes. Women, for +whom his indifference had a perverse fascination, said of him: "Dr. +Fielding isn't interested in people, only in their diseases. And not +really in diseases, only in their germs." + +They never suspected that Eliot was passionate, and that a fierce pity +had driven him into his profession. The thought of preventable disease +filled him with fury; he had no tolerance for the society that tolerated +it. He suffered because he had a clearer vision and a profounder sense +of suffering than most persons. Up to the time of his father's death all +Eliot's suffering had been other people's. He couldn't rest till he had +done something to remove the cause of it. + +Add to this an insatiable curiosity as to causes, and you have the main +bent of Eliot's mind. + +And it seemed to him that there was nobody but Anne who saw that hidden +side of him. _She_ knew that he was sorry for people, and that being +sorry for them had made him what he was, like Jerrold and yet unlike +him. Eliot was attracted to suffering by the same sensitiveness that +made Jerrold avoid everything once associated with it. + +And so the very thing that Jerrold couldn't bear to remember was what +drew Eliot closer to Anne. He saw her as Jerrold had seen her, moving, +composed and competent, in his father's room; he saw her stooping over +him to help him, he saw the specks of blood on her white sleeve; and he +thought of her with the more tenderness. From that instant he really +loved her. He wanted Anne as he had never conceived himself wanting any +woman. He could hardly remember his first adolescent feeling for her, +that confused mixture of ignorant desire and fear, so different was it +from the intense, clear passion that possessed him now. At night when +his work was done, he lay in bed, not sleeping, thinking of Anne with +desire that knew itself too well to be afraid. Anne was the one thing +necessary to him beside his work, necessary as a living part of himself. +She could only not come before his work because Eliot's work came before +himself and his own happiness. When he went down every other week-end to +Wyck-on-the-Hill he knew that it was to see Anne. + +His mother knew it too. + +"I wish Eliot would marry," she said. + +"Why?" said Anne. + +"Because then he wouldn't be so keen on going off to look for germs in +disgusting climates." + +Anne wondered whether Adeline knew Eliot. For Eliot talked to her about +his work as he walked with her at a fine swinging pace over the open +country, taking all his exercise now while he could get it. That was +another thing he liked about Anne Severn, her splendid physical fitness; +she could go stride for stride with him, and mile for mile, and never +tire. Her mind, too, was robust and active, and full of curiosity; it +listened by the hour and never tired. It could move, undismayed, among +horrors. She could see, as he saw, the "beauty" of the long trains of +research by which Sir Martin Crozier had tracked down the bacillus of +amoebic dysentery and established the difference between typhoid and +Malta fever. + +Once started on his subject, the grave, sullen Eliot talked excitedly. + +"You do see, Anne, how thrilling it is, don't you? For me there's +nothing but bacteriology. I always meant to go in for it, and Sir +Martin's magnificent. Absolutely top-hole. You see, all these disgusting +diseases can be prevented. It's inconceivable that they should be +tolerated in a civilized country. People can't care a rap or they +couldn't sleep in their beds. They ought to get up and make a public row +about it, to insist on compulsory inoculation for everybody whether they +like it or not. It really isn't enough to cure people of diseases when +they've got them. We ought to see that they never get them, that there +aren't any to get... What we don't know yet is the complete behaviour of +all these bacteria among themselves. A bad bacillus may be doing good +work by holding down a worse one. It's conceivable that if we succeeded +in exterminating all known diseases we might release an unknown one, +supremely horrible, that would exterminate the race." + +"Oh Eliot, how awful. How can _you_ sleep in your bed?" + +"You needn't worry. It's only a nightmare idea of mine." + +And so on and so on, for he was still so young that he wanted Anne to be +excited by the things that excited him. And Anne told him all about her +Ilford farm and what she meant to do on it. Eliot didn't behave like +Aunt Adeline, he listened beautifully, like Uncle Robert and Jerrold, as +if it was really most important that you should have a farm and work on +it. + +"What I want is to sell it and get one here. I don't want to be anywhere +else. I can't tell you how frightfully home-sick I am when I'm away. I +keep on seeing those gables with the little stone balls, and the +peacocks, and the fields down to the Manor Farm. And the hills, Eliot. +When I'm away I'm always dreaming that I'm trying to get back to them +and something stops me. Or I see them and they turn into something else. +I shan't be happy till I can come back for good." + +"You don't want to go to India?" Eliot's heart began to beat as he asked +his question. + +"I want to work. To work hard. To work till I'm so dead tired that I +roll off to sleep the minute I get into bed. So tired that I can't +dream." + +"That isn't right. You're too young to feel like that, Anne." + +"I do feel like it. You feel like it yourself--My farm is to me what +your old bacteria are to you." + +"Oh, if I thought it was the farm--" + +"Why, what else did you think it was?" + +Eliot couldn't bring himself to tell her. He took refuge in apparent +irrelevance. + +"You know Father left me the Manor Farm house, don't you?" + +"No, I didn't. I suppose he thought you'd want to come back, like me." + +"Well, I'm glad I've got it. Mother's got the Dower House in Wyck. But +she'll stay on here till--" + +"Till Jerrold comes back," said Anne bravely. + +"I don't suppose Jerry'll turn her out even then. Unless--" + +But neither he nor Anne had the courage to say "unless he marries." + +Not Anne, because she couldn't trust herself with the theme of Jerrold's +marrying. Not Eliot, because he had Jerrold's word for it that if he +married anybody, ever, it would not be Anne. + + * * * * * + +It was this assurance that made it possible for him to say what he had +been thinking of saying all the time that he talked to Anne about his +bacteriology. Bacteriology was a screen behind which Eliot, uncertain of +Anne's feelings, sheltered himself against irrevocable disaster. He +meant to ask Anne to marry him, but he kept putting it off because, so +long as he didn't know for certain that she wouldn't have him, he was at +liberty to think she would. He would not be taking her from Jerrold. +Jerrold, inconceivable ass, didn't want her. Eliot had made sure of that +months ago, the night before Jerrold sailed. He had simply put it to +him: what did he mean to do about Anne Severn? And Jerrold had made it +very plain that his chief object in going to India was to get away from +Anne Severn and Everything. Eliot knew Jerrold too well to suspect his +sincerity, so he considered that the way was now honorably open to him. + +His only uncertainty was Anne herself. He had meant to give her a year +to forget Jerrold in, if she was ever going to forget him; though in +moments of deeper insight he realized that Anne was not likely to +forget, nor to marry anybody else as long as she remembered. + +Yet, Eliot reasoned, women did marry, even remembering. They married and +were happy. You saw it every day. He was content to take Anne on her own +terms, at any cost, at any risk. He had never been afraid of risks, and +once he had faced the chance of her refusal all other dangers were +insignificant. + +A year was a long time, and Eliot had to consider the probability of his +going out to Central Africa with Sir Martin Crozier to investigate +sleeping sickness. He wanted the thing settled one way or another before +he went. + +He put it off again till the next week-end. And in the meanwhile Sir +Martin Crozier had seen him. He was starting in the spring and Eliot was +to go with him. + +It was on Sunday evening that he spoke to Anne, sitting with her under +the beeches at the top of the field where she and Jerrold had sat +together. Eliot had chosen his place badly. + +"I wouldn't bother you so soon if I wasn't going away, but I simply +must--must know--" + +"Must know what?" + +"Whether you care for me at all. Not much, of course, but just enough +not to hate marrying me." + +Anne turned her face full on him and looked at him with her innocent, +candid eyes. And all she said was, "You _do_ know about Jerrold, don't +you?" + +"Oh God, yes. I know all about him." + +"He's why I can't." + +"I tell you, I know all about Jerrold. He isn't a good enough reason." + +"Good enough for me." + +"Not unless--" But he couldn't say it. + +"Not unless he cares for me. That's why you're asking me, then, because +you know he doesn't." + +"Well, it wouldn't be much good if I knew he did." + +"Eliot, it's awful of me to talk about it, as if he'd said he did. He +never said a word. He never will." + +"I'm afraid he won't, Anne." + +"Don't imagine I ever thought he would. He never did anything to make me +think it for a minute, really." + +"Are you quite sure he didn't?" + +"Quite sure. I made it all up out of my head. My silly head. I don't +care what you think of me so long as you don't think it was Jerry's +fault. I should go on caring for him whatever he did or didn't do." + +"I know you would. But it's possible--" + +"To care for two people and marry one of them, no matter which? It isn't +possible for me. If I can't have the person I want I won't have +anybody." + +"It isn't wise, Anne. I tell you I could make you care for me. I know +all about you. I know how you think and how you feel. I understand you +better than Jerrold does. You'd be happy with me and you'd be safe." + +"It's no use. I'd rather be unhappy and in danger if it was with +Jerrold." + +"You'll be unhappy and in danger without him." + +"I don't care. Besides, I shan't be. I shall work. You'll work, too. +It'll be so exciting that you'll soon forget all about me." + +"You know I shan't. And I'll never give you up, unless Jerrold gets +you." + +"Eliot--I only told you about Jerrold, because I thought you ought to +know. So that you mightn't think it was anything in you." + +"It isn't something in me, then? Tell me--if it hadn't been for Jerry, +do you think you might have cared for me?" + +"Yes. I do. I quite easily might. And I think it would be a jolly good +thing if I could, now. Only I can't. I can't." + +"Poor little Anne." + +"Does it comfort you to think I'd have cared if it hadn't been for +Jerry?" + +"It does, very much." + +"Eliot--you're the only person I can talk to about him. Do you mind +telling me whether he said that to you, or whether you just guessed it." + +"What?" + +"Why, that he wouldn't--ever--" + +"I asked him, Anne, because I had to know. And he told me." + +"I thought he told you." + +"Yes, he told me. But I'm a cad for letting you think he didn't care for +you. I believe he did, or that he would have cared--awfully--if my +father hadn't died just then. Your being in the room that day upset him. +If it hadn't been for that--" + +"Yes, but there _was_ that. It was like he was when Binky died and he +couldn't stand Yearp. Don't you remember how he wouldn't let me go with +him to see Yearp because he said he didn't want me mixed up with it. +Well--I've been mixed up, that's all." + +"Still, Anne, I'm certain he'd have cared--if that's any comfort to you. +You didn't make it up out of your dear little head. We all thought it. +Father thought it. I believe he wanted it. If he'd only known!" + +She thought: If he'd only known how he had hurt her, he who had never +hurt anybody in all his beautiful life. + +"Dear Uncle Robert. There's no good talking about it. I knew, the minute +Jerry said he didn't want me to go to India with him." + +"Is that why you didn't go?" + +"Yes." + +"That was a mistake, Anne. You should have gone." + +"How could I, after that? And if I had, he'd only have kept away." + +"You should have let him go first and then gone after him. You should +have turned up suddenly, in wonderful clothes, looking cheerful and +beautiful. So that you wiped out the memory he funked. As it is you've +left him nothing else to think of." + +"I daresay that's what I should have done. But it's too late. I can't do +it now." + +"I'm not so sure." + +"What, go _after_ Jerrold? Hunt him down? Dress up and scheme to make +him marry me?" + +"Yes. Yes. Yes." + +"Eliot, you know I couldn't." + +"You said once you'd commit a crime for anybody you cared about." + +"A crime, yes. But not that. I'd rather die." + +"You're too fastidious. It's only the unscrupulous people who get what +they want in this world. They know what they want and go for it. They +stamp on everything and everybody that gets in their way." + +"Oh, Eliot dear, I know what I want, and I'd go for it. If only Jerrold +knew, too." + +"He would know if you showed him." + +"And that's just what I can't do." + +"Well, don't say I didn't give you the best possible advice, against my +own interests, too." + +"It was sweet of you. But you see how impossible it is." + +"I see how adorable you are. You always were." + + +iv + +For the first time in her life Adeline was furious. + +She had asked Eliot whether he was or was not going to marry Anne +Severn, and was told that he had asked her to marry him that afternoon +and that she wouldn't have him. + +"Wouldn't have you? What's she thinking of?" + +"You'd better ask her," said Eliot, never dreaming that she would. + +But that was what Adeline did. She came that night to Anne's room just +as Anne was getting into bed. Unappeased by her defenseless attitude, +she attacked with violence. + +"What's all this about Eliot asking you to marry him?" + +Anne uncurled herself and sat up on the edge of her bed. + +"Did he tell you?" + +"Yes. Of course he told me. He says you refused him. Did you?" + +"I'm afraid I did." + +"Then Anne, you're a perfect little fool." + +"But Auntie, I don't love him." + +"Nonsense; you love him as much as most people love the men they marry. +He's quite sensible. He doesn't want you to go mad about him." + +"He wants more than I can give him." + +"Well, all I can say is if you can't give him what he wants you'd no +business to go about with him as you've been doing." + +"I've been going about with him all my life and I never dreamed he'd +want to marry me." + +"What did you suppose he'd want?" + +"Why, nothing but just to go about. As we always did." + +"You idiot." + +"I don't see why you should be so cross about it." + +Adeline sat down in the armchair at the head of the bed, prepared to +"have it out" with Anne. + +"I suppose you think my son's happiness is nothing to me? Didn't it +occur to you that if you refuse him he'll stick for years in that awful +place he's going to? Whereas if he had a wife in England there'd be a +chance of his coming home now and then. Perhaps he'd never go out +again." + +"I'm sorry, Auntie. I can't marry Eliot even to keep him in England. +Even to please you." + +"Even to save his life, you mean. You don't care if he dies of some +hideous tropical disease." + +"I care awfully. But I can't marry him. He knows why." + +"It's more than I do. If you're thinking of Jerrold, you needn't. I +thought you'd done with that schoolgirlish nonsense." + +"I'm not 'thinking' of him. I'm not 'thinking' of anybody and I wish +you'd leave me alone." + +"My dear child, how can I leave you alone when I see you making the +mistake of your life? Eliot is absolutely the right person for you, if +you'd only the sense to see it. He's got more character than anybody I +know. Much more than dear Jerry. He'll be ten times more interesting to +live with." + +"I thought Jerrold was your favourite." + +"No, Eliot, my dear. Always Eliot. He was my first baby." + +"Well, I'm awfully sorry you mind so much. And I'd marry Eliot if I +could. I simply hate him to be unhappy. But he won't be. He'll live to +be frightfully glad I didn't...What, aren't you going to kiss me +good-night?" + +Adeline had risen and turned away with the great dignity of her +righteous anger. + +"I don't feel like it," she said. "I think you've been thoroughly +selfish and unkind. I hate girls who go on like that--making a man mad +about you by pretending to be his comrade, and then throwing him over. +I've had more men in love with me, Anne, than you've seen in your life, +but I never did _that_." + +"Oh Auntie, what about Father? And you were engaged to him." + +"Well, anyhow," said Adeline, softened by the recollection, "I _was_ +engaged." + +She smiled her enchanting smile; and Anne, observing the breakdown of +dignity, got up off the bed and kissed her. + +"I don't suppose," she said, "that Father was the only one." + +"He wasn't. But then, with _me_, my dear, it was their own risk. They +knew where they were." + + +v + +In March, nineteen eleven, Eliot went out to Central Africa. He stayed +there two years, investigating malaria and sleeping sickness. Then he +went on to the Straits Settlements and finally took a partnership in a +practice at Penang. + +Anne left Wyck at Easter and returned in August because of Colin. Then +she went back to her Ilford farm. + +The two years passed, and in the spring of the third year, nineteen +fourteen, she came again. + + + +VI + + +QUEENIE + +i + +Something awful had happened. Adeline had told Anne about it. + +It seemed that Colin in his second year at Cambridge, when he should +have given his whole mind to reading for the Diplomatic Service, had had +the imprudence to get engaged. And to a girl that Adeline had never +heard of, about whom nothing was known but that she was remarkably +handsome and that her family (Courthopes of Leicestershire) were, in +Adeline's brief phrase, "all right." + +From the terrace they could see, coming up the lawn from the goldfish +pond, Colin and his girl. + +Queenie Courthope. She came slowly, her short Russian skirt swinging out +from her ankles. The brilliance of her face showed clear at a distance, +vermilion on white, flaming; hard, crystal eyes, sweeping and flashing; +bobbed hair, brown-red, shining in the sun. Then a dominant, squarish +jaw, and a mouth exquisitely formed, but thin, a vermilion thread drawn +between her staring, insolent nostrils and the rise of her round chin. + +This face in its approach expressed a profound, arrogant indifference to +Adeline and Anne. Only as it turned towards Colin its grey-black eyes +lowered and were soft dark under the black feathers of their brows. + +Colin looked back at it with a shy, adoring tenderness. + +Queenie could be even more superbly uninterested than Adeline. In +Adeline's self-absorption there was a passive innocence, a candor that +disarmed you, but Queenie's was insolent and hostile; it took possession +of the scene and challenged every comer. + +"Hallo, Anne!" Colin shouted. "How did you get here?" + +"Motored down." + +"I say, have you got a car?" + +"Only just." + +"Drove yourself?" + +"Rather." + +Queenie scowled as if there were something disagreeable to her in the +idea that Anne should have a car of her own and drive it. She endured +the introduction in silence and addressed herself with an air of +exclusiveness to Colin. + +"What are we going to do?" + +"Anything you like," he said. + +"I'll play you singles, then." + +"Anne might like to play," said Colin. But he still looked at Queenie, +as she flamed in her beauty. + +"Oh, three's a rotten game. You can't play the two of us unless Miss +Severn handicaps me." + +"She won't do that. Anne could take us both on and play a decent game." + +Queenie picked up her racquet and stood between them, beating her skirts +with little strokes of irritated impatience. Her eyes were fixed on +Colin, trying, you could see, to dominate him. + +"We'd better take it in turns," he said. + +"Thanks, Col-Col. I'd rather not play. I've driven ninety-seven miles." + +"Really rather?" + +Queenie backed towards the court. + +"Oh, come on, Colin, if you're coming." + +He went. + +"What do you think of Queenie?" Adeline said. + +"She's very handsome." + +"Yes, Anne. But it isn't a nice face. Now, is it?" + +Anne couldn't say it was a nice face. + +"It's awful to think of Colin being married to it. He's only twenty-one +now, and she's seven years older. If it had been anybody but Colin. If +it had been Eliot or Jerrold I shouldn't have minded so much. They can +look after themselves. He'll never stand up against that horrible girl." + +"She does look terribly strong." + +"And cruel, Anne, as if she might hurt him. I don't want him to be hurt. +I can't bear her taking him away from me. My little Col-Col....I did +hope, Anne, that if you wouldn't have Eliot--" + +"I'd have Colin? But Auntie, I'm years older than he is. He's a baby." + +"If he's a baby he'll want somebody older to look after him." + +"Queenie's even better fitted than I am, then." + +"Do you think, Anne, she proposed to Colin?" + +"No. I shouldn't think it was necessary." + +"I should say she was capable of anything. My only hope is they'll tire +each other out before they're married and break it off." + +All afternoon on the tennis court below Queenie played against Colin. +She played vigorously, excitedly, savagely, to win. She couldn't hide +her annoyance when he beat her. + +"What was I to do?" he said. "You don't like it when I beat you. But if +I was beaten you wouldn't like _me_." + + +ii + +Adeline's only hope was not realized. They hadn't had time to tire of +each other before the War broke out. And Colin insisted on marrying +before he joined up. Their engagement had left him nervous and unfit, +and his idea was that, once married, he would present a better +appearance before the medical examiners. + +But after a month of Queenie, Colin was more nervous and unfit than +ever. + +"I can't think," said Adeline, "what that woman does to him. She'll wear +him out." + +So Colin waited, trying to get fitter, and afraid to volunteer lest he +should be rejected. + +Everybody around him was moving rapidly. Queenie had taken up motoring, +so that she could drive an ambulance car at the front. Anne had gone up +to London for her Red Cross training. Eliot had left his practice to his +partner at Penang and had come home and joined the Army Medical Corps. + +Eliot, home on leave for three days before he went out, tried hard to +keep Colin back from the War. In Eliot's opinion Colin was not fit and +never would be fit to fight. He was just behaving as he always had +behaved, rushing forward, trying insanely to do the thing he never could +do. + +"Do you mean to say they won't pass me?" he asked. + +"Oh, they'll pass you all right," Eliot said. "They'll give you an +expensive training, and send you into the trenches, and in any time from +a day to a month you'll be in hospital with shell-shock. Then you'll be +discharged as unfit, having wasted everybody's time and made a damned +nuisance of yourself....I suppose I ought to say it's splendid of you to +want to go out. But it isn't splendid. It's idiotic. You'll be simply +butting in where you're not wanted, taking a better man's place, taking +a better man's commission, taking a better man's bed in a hospital. I +tell you we don't want men who are going to crumple up in their first +action." + +"Do you think I'm going to funk then?" said poor Colin. + +"Funk? Oh, Lord no. You'll stick it till you drop, till you're +paralyzed, till you've lost your voice and memory, till you're an utter +wreck. There'll be enough of 'em, poor devils, without you, Col-Col." + +"But why should I go like that more than anybody else?" + +"Because you're made that way, because you haven't got a nervous system +that can stand the racket. The noises alone will do for you. You'll be +as right as rain if you keep out of it." + +"But Jerrold's coming back. _He_'ll go out at once. How can I stick at +home when he's gone?" + +"Heaps of good work to be done at home." + +"Not by men of my age." + +"By men of your nervous organization. Your going out would be sheer +waste." + +"Why not?" Does it matter what becomes of me?" + +"No. It doesn't. It matters, though, that you'll be taking a better +man's place." + +Now Colin really did want to go out and fight, as he had always wanted +to follow Jerrold's lead; he wanted it so badly that it seemed to him a +form of self-indulgence; and this idea of taking a better man's place so +worked on him that he had almost decided to give it up, since that was +the sacrifice required of him, when he told Queenie what Eliot had said. + +"All I can say is," said Queenie, "that if you don't go out I shall give +_you_ up. I've no use for men with cold feet." + +"Can't you see," said Colin (he almost hated Queenie in that moment), +"what I'm afraid of? Being a damned nuisance. That's what Eliot says +I'll be. I don't know how he knows." + +"He doesn't know everything. If _my_ brother tried to stop my going to +the front I'd jolly soon tell him to go to hell. I swear, Colin, if you +back out of it I won't speak to you again. I'm not asking you to do +anything I funk myself." + +"Oh, shut up. I'm going all right. Not because you've asked me, but +because I want to." + +"If you didn't I should think you'd feel pretty rotten when I'm out with +my Field Ambulance," said Queenie. + +"Damn your Field Ambulance!... No, I didn't mean that, old thing; it's +splendid of you to go. But you'd no business to suppose I funked. I +_may_ funk. Nobody knows till they've tried. But I was going all right +till Eliot put me off." + +"Oh, if you're put off as easily as all that----" + +She was intolerable. She seemed to think he was only going because she'd +shamed him into it. + +That evening he sang: + + "'What are you doing all the day, Rendal, my son? + What are you doing all the day, my pretty one?'" + +He understood that song now. + + "'What will you leave to your lover, Rendal, my son? + What will you leave to your lover, my pretty one? + A rope to hang her, mother, + A rope to hang her, mother....'" + +"Go it, Col-Col!" Out on the terrace Queenie laughed her harsh, cruel +laugh. + + "'For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.'" + +"'I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down,'" Queenie echoed, with +clipped words, mocking him. + +He hated Queenie. + +And he loved her. At night, at night, she would unbend, she would be +tender and passionate, she would touch him with quick, hurrying +caresses, she would put her arms round him and draw him to her, kissing +and kissing. And with her young, beautiful body pressed tight to him, +with her mouth on his and her eyes shining close and big in the +darkness, Colin would forget. + + +iii + + Dr. Cutler's Field Ambulance, British Hospital, Antwerp. + + _September 20th, 1914._ + + Dearest Auntie Adeline,--I haven't been able to write before. + There's been a lot of fighting all round here and we're + frightfully busy getting in wounded. And when you've done you're + too tired to sit up and write letters. You simply roll into bed + and drop off to sleep. Sometimes we're out with the ambulances + half the night. + + You needn't worry about me. I'm keeping awfully fit. I _am_ + glad now I've always lived in the open air and played games and + ploughed my own land. My muscles are as hard as any Tommie's. So + are Queenie's. You see, we have to act as stretcher bearers as + well as chauffeurs. You're not much good if you can't carry your + own wounded. + + Queenie is simply splendid. She really _doesn't_ know what + fear is, and she's at her very best under fire. It sort of + excites her and bucks her up. I can't help seeing how fine she + is, though she was so beastly to poor old Col-Col before he + joined up. But talk of the War bringing out the best in people, + you should simply see her out here with the wounded. Dr. Cutler + (the Commandant) thinks no end of her. She drives for him and I + drive for a little doctor man called Dicky Cartwright. He's + awfully good at his job and decent. Queenie doesn't like him. I + can't think why. + + Good-bye, darling. Take care of yourself. + + Your loving + + Anne. + + Antwerp. _October 3rd._ + + ... You ask me what I really think of Queenie at close quarters. + Well, the quarters are very close and I know she simply hates + me. She was fearfully sick when she found we were both in the + same Corps. She's always trying to get up a row about something. + She'd like to have me fired out of Belgium if she could, but I + mean to stay as long as I can, so I won't quarrel with her. She + can't do it all by herself. And when I feel like going back on + her I tell myself how magnificent she is, so plucky and so + clever at her job. I don't wonder that half the men in our Corps + are gone on her. And there's a Belgian Colonel, the one Cutler + gets his orders from, who'd make a frantic fool of himself if + she'd let him. But good old Queenie sticks to her job and + behaves as if they weren't there. That makes them madder. You'd + have thought they'd never have had the time to be such asses in, + but it's wonderful what a state you can get into in your few odd + moments. Dicky says it's the War whips you up and makes it all + the easier. I don't know.... + + FURNES. + + _November._ + + That's where we are now. I simply can't describe the retreat. It + was too awful, and I don't want to think about it. We've + "settled" down in a house we've commandeered and I suppose we + shall stick here till we're shelled out of it. + + Talking of shelling, Queenie is funny. She's quite annoyed if + anybody besides herself gets anywhere near a shell. We picked up + two more stretcher-bearers in Ostend and a queer little + middle-aged lady out for a job at the front. Cutler took her on + as a sort of secretary. At first Queenie was so frantic that she + wouldn't speak to her, and swore she'd make the Corps too hot to + hold her. But when she found that the little lady wasn't for the + danger zone and only proposed to cook and keep our accounts for + us, she calmed down and was quite decent. Then the other day + Miss Mullins came and told us that a bit of shell had chipped + off the corner of her kitchen. The poor old thing was ever so + proud and pleased about it, and Queenie snubbed her frightfully, + and said she wasn't in any danger at all, and asked her how + she'd enjoy it if she was out all day under fire, like us. + + And she was furious with me because I had the luck to get into + the bombardment at Dixmude and she hadn't. She talked as if I'd + done her out of her shelling on purpose, whereas it only meant + that I happened to be on the spot when the ambulances were sent + out and she was away somewhere with her own car. She really is + rather vulgar about shells. Dicky says it's a form of war + snobbishness (he hasn't got a scrap of it), but I think it + really is because all the time she's afraid of one of us being + killed. It must be that. Even Dicky owns that she's splendid, + though he doesn't like her.... + + +iv + + +Five months later. + + The Manor, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. + + _May 30th, 1915._ + + My darling Anne,--Queenie will have told you about Colin. He was + through all that frightful shelling at Ypres in April. He's been + three weeks in the hospital at Boulogne with shell-shock--had it + twice--and now he's back and in that Officers' Hospital in + Kensington, not a bit better. I really think Queenie ought to + get leave and come over and see him. + + Eliot was perfectly right. He ought never to have gone out. Of + course he was as plucky as they make them--went back into the + trenches after his first shell-shock--but his nerves couldn't + stand it. Whether they're treating him right or not, they don't + seem to be able to do anything for him. + + I'm writing to Queenie. But tell her she must come and see him. + + Your loving + + Adeline Fielding. + +Three months later. + + The Manor, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. + + _August 30th._ + + Darling Anne,--Colin has been discharged at last as incurable. + He is with me here. I'm so glad to have him, the darling. But + oh, his nerves are in an awful state--all to bits. He's an utter + wreck, my beautiful Colin; it would make your heart bleed to see + him. He can't sleep at night; he keeps on hearing shells; and if + he does sleep he dreams about them and wakes up screaming. It's + awful to hear a man scream. Anne, Queenie must come home and + look after him. My nerves are going. I can't sleep any more than + Colin. I lie awake waiting for the scream. I can't take the + responsibility of him alone, I can't really. After all, she's + his wife, and she made him go out and fight, though she knew + what Eliot said it would do to him. It's too cruel that it + should have happened to Col-Col of all people. _Make_ that woman + come. + + Your loving + + Adeline Fielding. + + Nieuport. _September 5th, 1915._ + + Darling Auntie,--I'm so sorry about dear Col-Col. And I quite + agree that Queenie ought to go back and look after him. But she + won't. She says her work here is much more important and that + she can't give up hundreds of wounded soldiers for just one man. + Of course she is doing splendidly, and Cutler says he can't + spare her and she'd be simply thrown away on one case. They + think Colin's people ought to look after him. It doesn't seem to + matter to either of them that he's her husband. They've got into + the way of looking at everybody as a case. They say it's not + even as if Colin could be got better so as to be sent out to + fight again. It would be sheer waste of Queenie. + + But Cutler has given me leave to go over and see him. I shall + get to Wyck as soon as this letter. + + Dear Col-Col, I wish I could do something for him. I feel as if + we could never, never do too much after all he's been through. + Fancy Eliot knowing exactly what would happen. + + Your loving + + Anne. + + Nieuport. _September 7th._ + + Dear Anne,--Now that you _have_ gone I think I ought to tell you + that it would be just as well if you didn't come back. I've got + a man to take your place; Queenie picked him up at Dunkirk the + day you sailed, and he's doing very well. + + The fact is we're getting on much better since you left. There's + perfect peace now. You and Queenie didn't hit it off, you know, + and for a job like ours it's absolutely essential that everybody + should pull together like one. It doesn't do to have two in a + Corps always at loggerheads. + + I don't like to lose you, and I know you've done splendidly. But + I've got to choose between Queenie and you, and I must keep her, + if it's only because she's worked with me all the time. So now + that you've made the break I take the opportunity of asking you + to resign. Personally I'm sorry, but the good of the Corps must + come before everything. + + Sincerely yours, + + Robert Cutler. + + The Manor, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. + + _September 11th, 1915._ + + Dear Dicky,--This is only to say good-bye, as I shan't see you + again. Cutler's fired me out of the Corps. He _says_ it's + because Queenie and I don't hit it off. I shouldn't have thought + that was my fault, but he seems to think it is. He says there's + been perfect peace since I left. + + Well, we've had some tremendous times together, and I wish we + could have gone on. + + Good-bye and Good Luck, + + Yours ever, + + Anne Severn. + + P. S.--Poor Colin Fielding's in an awful state. But he's been a + bit better since I came. Even if Cutler'd let me come back I + couldn't leave him. This is my job. The queer thing is he's + afraid of Queenie, so it's just as well she didn't come home. + + Nieuport. + + _September 15th, 1915._ + + Dear Old Thing,--We're all furious here at the way you've been + treated. I've resigned as a protest, and I'm going into the R. + A. M. So has Miss Mullins--: resigned I mean--so Queenie's the + only woman left in the Corps. That'll suit her down to the + ground. + + I gave myself the treat of telling Cutler what I jolly well + think of him. But of course you know she made him hoof you out. + She's been trying for it ever since you joined. It's all rot his + saying you didn't hit it off with her, when everybody knows you + were a perfect angel to her. Why, you backed her every time when + we were all going for her. It's quite true that the peace of God + has settled on the Corps since you left it; but that's only + because Queenie doesn't rage round any more. + + You'll observe that she never went for Miss Mullins. That's + because Miss Mullins kept well out of the line of fire. And if + you hadn't jolly well distinguished yourself there she'd have + let you alone, too. The real trouble began that day you were at + Dixmude. It wasn't a bit because she was afraid you'd be killed. + Queenie doesn't want you about when the War medals are handed + round. Everybody sees that but old Cutler. He's too much gone on + her to see anything. She can twist him round and round and tie + him up in knots. + + But Cutler isn't in it now. Queenie's turned him down for that + young Noel Fenwick who's got your job. Cutler's nose was a + sight, I can tell you. + + + Well, I'm not surprised that Queenie's husband funks her. She's + a terror. Worse than war. + + Good-bye and Good Luck, Old Thing, till we meet again. + + Yours ever, + + Dicky Cartwright. + + + +VII + + +ADELINE + +i + +They would never know what it cost her to come back and look after +Colin. That knowledge was beyond Adeline Fielding. She congratulated +Anne and expected Anne to congratulate herself on being "well out of +it." Her safety was revolting and humiliating to Anne when she thought +of Queenie and Cutler and Dicky, and Eliot and Jerrold and all the +allied armies in the thick of it. She had left a world where life was +lived at its highest pitch of intensity for a world where people were +only half-alive. To be safe from the chance of sudden violent death was +to be only half-alive. + +Her one consolation had been that now she would see Jerrold. But she did +not see him. Jerrold had given up his appointment in the Punjaub three +weeks before the outbreak of the war. His return coincided with the +retreat from Mons. He had not been in England a week before he was in +training on Salisbury Plain. Anne had left Wyck when he arrived; and +before he got leave she was in Belgium with her Field Ambulance. And +now, in October of nineteen fifteen, when she came back to Wyck, Jerrold +was fighting in France. + +At least they knew what had happened to Colin; but about Eliot and +Jerrold they knew nothing. Anything might have happened to them since +they had written the letters that let them off from week to week, +telling them that they were safe. Anything might happen and they might +never know. + +Anne's fear was dumb and secret. She couldn't talk about Jerrold. She +lived every minute in terror of Adeline's talking, of the cries that +came from her at queer unexpected moments: between two cups of tea, two +glances at the mirror, two careful gestures of her hands pinning up her +hair. + +"I cannot bear it if anything happens to Jerrold, Anne." + +"Oh Anne, I wonder what's happening to Jerrold." + +"If only I knew what was happening to Jerrold." + +"If only I knew where Jerrold _was_. Nothing's so awful as not knowing." + +And at breakfast, over toast and marmalade: "Anne, I've got such an +awful feeling that something's happened to Jerrold. I'm sure these +feelings aren't given you for nothing... You aren't eating anything, +darling. You _must_ eat." + +Every morning at breakfast Anne had to look through the lists of killed, +missing and wounded, to save Adeline the shock of coming upon Jerrold's +or Eliot's name. Every morning Adeline gazed at Anne across the table +with the same look of strained and agonised enquiry. Every morning +Anne's heart tightened and dragged, then loosened and lifted, as they +were let off for one more day. + +One more day? Not one more hour, one minute. Any second the wire from +the War Office might come. + + +ii + +Anne never knew the moment when she was first aware that Colin's mother +was afraid of him. Aunt Adeline was very busy, making swabs and +bandages. Every day she went off to her War Hospital Supply work at the +Town Hall, and Anne was left to take care of Colin. She began to wonder +whether the swabs and bandages were not a pretext for getting away from +Colin. + +"It's no use," Adeline said. "I cannot stand the strain of it. Anne, +he's worse with me than he is with you. Everything I say and do is +wrong. You don't know what it was like before you came." + +Anne did know. The awful thing was that Colin couldn't bear to be left +alone, day or night. He would lie awake shivering with terror. If he +dropped off to sleep he woke screaming. At first Pinkney slept with him. +But Pinkney had joined up, and old Wilkins, the butler, was impossible +because he snored. + +Anne had her old room across the passage where she had slept when they +were children. And now, as then, their doors were left open, so that at +a sound from Colin she could get up and go to him. + +She was used to the lacerating, unearthly scream that woke her, the +scream that terrified Adeline, that made her cover her head tight with +the bed-clothes, to shut it out, that made her lock her door to shut out +Colin. Once he had come into his mother's room and she had found him +standing by her bed and looking at her with the queer frightened face +that frightened her. She was always afraid of this happening again. + +Anne couldn't bear to think of that locked door. She was used to the +sight of Colin standing in her doorway, to the watches beside his bed +where he lay shivering, holding her hand tight as he used to hold it +when he was a child. To Anne he was "poor Col-Col" again, the little boy +who was afraid of ghosts, only more abandoned to terror, more +unresisting. + +He would start and tremble at any quick, unexpected movement. He would +burst into tears at any sudden sound. Small noises, whisperings, +murmurings, creakings, soft shufflings, irritated him. Loud noises, the +slamming of doors, the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, made him +writhe in agony. For Colin the deep silence of the Manor was the ambush +for some stupendous, crashing, annihilating sound; sound that was always +coming and never came. The droop of the mouth that used to appear +suddenly in his moments of childish anguish was fixed now, and fixed the +little tortured twist of his eyebrows and his look of anxiety and fear. +His head drooped, his shoulders were hunched slightly, as if he cowered +before some perpetually falling blow. + +On fine warm days he lay out on the terrace on Adeline's long chair; on +wet days he lay on the couch in the library, or sat crouching over the +fire. Anne brought him milk or beef tea or Benger's Food every two +hours. He was content to be waited on; he had no will to move, no desire +to get up and do things for himself. He lay or sat still, shivering +every now and then as he remembered or imagined some horror. And as he +was afraid to be left alone Anne sat with him. + +"How can you say this is a quiet place?" he said. + +"It's quiet enough now." + +"It isn't. It's full of noises. Loud, thundering noises going on and on. +Awful noises.... You know what it is? It's the guns in France. I can +hear them all the time." + +"No, Colin. That isn't what you hear. We're much too far off. Nobody +could hear them." + +"_I_ can." + +"I don't think so." + +"Do you mean it's noises in my head?" + +"Yes. They'll go away when you're stronger." + +"I shall never be strong again." + +"Oh yes, you will be. You're better already." + +"If I get better they'll send me out again." + +"Never. Never again." + +"I ought to be out. I oughtn't to be sticking here doing nothing.... +Anne, you don't think Queenie'll come over, do you?" + +"No, I don't. She's got much too much to do out there." + +"You know, that's what I'm afraid of, more than anything, Queenie's +coming. She'll tell me I funked. She thinks I funked. She thinks that's +what's the matter with me." + +"She doesn't. She knows it's your body, not you. Your nerves are shaken +to bits, that's all." + +"I didn't funk, Anne." (He said it for the hundredth time.) "I mean I +stuck it all right. I went back after I had shell-shock the first +time--straight back into the trenches. It was at the very end of the +fighting that I got it again. Then I couldn't go back. I couldn't move." + +"I know, Colin, I know." + +"Does Queenie know?" + +"Of course she does. She understands perfectly. Why, she sees men with +shell-shock every day. She knows you were splendid." + +"I wasn't. But I wasn't as bad as she thinks me. ... Don't let her see +me if she comes back." + +"She won't come." + +"She will. She will. She'll get leave some day. Tell her not to come. +Tell her she can't see me. Say I'm off my head. Any old lie that'll stop +her." + +"Don't think about her." + +"I can't help thinking. She said such beastly things. You can't think +what disgusting things she said." + +"She says them to everybody. She doesn't mean them." + +"Oh, doesn't she!... Is that mother? You might tell her I'm sleeping." + +For Colin was afraid of his mother, too. He was afraid that she would +talk, that she would talk about the War and about Jerrold. Colin had +been home six weeks and he had not once spoken Jerrold's name. He read +his letters and handed them to Anne and Adeline without a word. It was +as if between him and the thought of Jerrold there was darkness and a +supreme, nameless terror. + +One morning at dawn Anne was wakened by Colin's voice in her room. + +"Anne, are you awake?" + +The room was full of the white dawn. She saw him standing in it by her +bedside. + +"My head's awfully queer," he said. "I can feel my brain shaking and +wobbling inside it, as if the convolutions had come undone. Could they?" + +"Of course they couldn't." + +"The noise might have loosened them." + +"It isn't your brain you feel, Colin. It's your nerves. It's just the +shock still going on in them." + +"Is it never going to stop?" + +"Yes, when you're stronger. Go back to bed and I'll come to you." + +He went back. She slipped on her dressing-gown and came to him. She sat +by his bed and put her hand on his forehead. + +"There--it stops when you put your hand on." + +"Yes. And you'll sleep." + +Presently, to her joy, he slept. + +She stood up and looked at him as he lay there in the white dawn. He was +utterly innocent, utterly pathetic in his sleep, and beautiful. Sleep +smoothed out his vexed face and brought back the likeness of the boy +Colin, Jerrold's brother. + +That morning a letter came to her from Jerrold. He wrote: "Don't worry +too much about Col-Col. He'll be all right as long as you'll look after +him." + +She thought: "I wonder whether he remembers that he asked me to." + +But she was glad he was not there to hear Colin scream. + + +iii + +"Anne, can _you_ sleep?" said Adeline. Colin had gone to bed and they +were sitting together in the drawing-room for the last hour of the +evening. + +"Not very well, when Colin has such bad nights." + +"Do you think he's ever going to get right again?" + +"Yes. But it'll take time." + +"A long time?" + +"Very long, probably." + +"My dear, if it does, I don't know how I'm going to stand it. And if I +only knew what was happening to Jerrold and Eliot. Sometimes I wonder +how I've lived through these five years. First, Robert's death; then the +War. And before that there was nothing but perfect happiness. I think +trouble's worse to bear when you've known nothing but happiness +before.... If I could only die instead of all these boys, Anne. Why +can't I? What is there to live for?" + +"There's Jerrold and Eliot and Colin." + +"Oh, my dear, Jerrold and Eliot may never come back. And look at poor +Colin. _That_ isn't the Colin I know. He'll never be the same again. I'd +almost rather he'd been killed than that he should be like this. If he'd +lost a leg or an arm.... It's all very well for you, Anne. He isn't your +son." + +"You don't know what he is," said Anne. She thought: "He's Jerrold's +brother. He's what Jerrold loves more than anything." + +"No," said Adeline. "Everything ended for me when Robert died. I shall +never marry again. I couldn't bear to put anybody in Robert's place." + +"Of course you couldn't. I know it's been awful for you, Auntie." + +"I couldn't bear it, Anne, if I didn't believe that there is Something +Somewhere. I can't think how you get on without any religion." + +"How do you know I haven't any?" + +"Well, you've no faith in Anything. Have you, ducky?" + +"I don't know what I've faith in. It's too difficult. If you love +people, that's enough, I think. It keeps you going through everything." + +"No, it doesn't. It's all the other way about. It's loving people that +makes it all so hard. If you didn't love them you wouldn't care what +happened to them. If I didn't love Colin I could bear his shell-shock +better." + +"If _I_ didn't love him, I couldn't bear it at all." + +"I expect," said Adeline, "we both mean the same thing." + +Anne thought of Adeline's locked door; and, in spite of her love for +her, she had a doubt. She wondered whether in this matter of loving they +had ever meant the same thing. With Adeline love was a passive state +that began and ended in emotion. With Anne love was power in action. +More than anything it meant doing things for the people that you loved. +Adeline loved her husband and her sons, but she had run away from the +sight of Robert's haemorrhage, she had tried to keep back Eliot and +Jerrold from the life they wanted, she locked her door at night and shut +Colin out. To Anne that was the worst thing Adeline had done yet. She +tried not to think of that locked door. + +"I suppose," said Adeline, "you'll leave me now your father's coming +home?" + +John Severn's letter lay between them on the table. He was retiring +after twenty-five years of India. He would be home as soon as his +letter. + +"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Anne. "I shall stay as long as +you want me. If father wants me he must come down here." + +In another three days he had come. + + +iv + +He had grey hair now and his face was a little lined, a little faded, +but he was slender and handsome still--handsomer, more distinguished, +Adeline thought, than ever. + +Again he sat out with her on the terrace when the October days were +warm; he walked with her up and down the lawn and on the flagged paths +of the flower garden. Again he followed her from the drawing-room to the +library where Colin was, and back again. He waited, ready for her. + +Again Adeline smiled her self-satisfied, self-conscious smile. She had +the look of a young girl, moving in perfect happiness. She was +perpetually aware of him. + +One night Colin called out to Anne that he couldn't sleep. People were +walking about outside under his window. Anne looked out. In the full +moonlight she saw Adeline and her father walking together on the +terrace. Adeline was wrapped in a long cloak; she held his arm and they +leaned toward each other as they walked. His man's voice sounded tender +and low. + +Anne called to them. "I say, darlings, would you mind awfully going +somewhere else? Colin can't sleep with you prowling about there." + +Adeline's voice came up to them with a little laughing quiver. + +"All right, ducky; we're going in." + + +v + +It was the end of October; John Severn had gone back to London. He had +taken a house in Montpelier Square and was furnishing it. + +One morning Adeline came down smiling, more self-conscious than ever. + +"Anne," she said, "do you think you could look after Colin if I went up +to Evelyn's for a week or two?" + +Evelyn was Adeline's sister. She lived in London. + +"Of course I can." + +"You aren't afraid of being alone with him?" + +"Afraid? Of Col-Col? What do you take me for?" + +"Well--" Adeline meditated. "It isn't as if Mrs. Benning wasn't here." + +Mrs. Benning was the housekeeper. + +"That'll make it all right and proper. The fact is, I must have a rest +and change before the winter. I hardly ever get away, as you know. And +Evelyn would like to have me. I think I must go." + +"Of course you must go," Anne said. + +And Adeline went. + +At the end of the first week she wrote: + + 12 Eaton Square. November 3d, 1915. + + Darling Anne,--Will you be very much surprised to hear that your + father and I are going to be married? You mayn't know it, but he + has loved me all his life. We _were_ to have married once (you + knew _that_), and I jilted him. But he has never changed. He has + been so faithful and forgiving, and has waited for me so + patiently--twenty-seven years, Anne--that I hadn't the heart to + refuse him. I feel that I must make up to him for all the pain + I've given him. + + We want you to come up for the wedding on the 10th. It will be + very quiet. No bridesmaids. No party. We think it best not to + have it at Wyck, on Colin's account. So I shall just be married + from Evelyn's house. + + Give us your blessing, there's a dear. + + Your loving + + Adeline Fielding. + +Anne's eyes filled with tears. At last she saw Adeline Fielding +completely, as she was, without any fascination. She thought: "She's +marrying to get away from Colin. She's left him to me to look after. How +could she leave him? How could she?" + +Anne didn't go up for the wedding. She told Adeline it wasn't much use +asking her when she knew that Colin couldn't be left. + +"Or, if you like, that _I_ can't leave him." + +Her father wrote back: + + Your Aunt Adeline thinks you reproach her for leaving Colin. I told her + you were too intelligent to do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's + the best thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of looking + after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be looked after herself, and + you ought to be grateful to me for relieving you of the job. + + But I don't like your being alone down there with Colin. If he isn't + better we must send him to a nursing home. + + Are you wondering whether we're going to be happy? + + We shall be so long as I let her have her own way; which is what I mean + to do. + + Your very affectionate father, + + JOHN SEVERN. + + +And Anne answered: + + DEAREST DADDY,--I shouldn't dream of reproaching Aunt Adeline any more + than I should reproach a pussycat for catching birds. + + Look after her as much as you please--_I_ shall look after Colin. + Whether you like it or not, darling, you can't stop me. And I won't let + Colin go to a nursing home. It would be the worst possible place for + him. Ask Eliot. Besides, he _is_ better. + + I'm ever so glad you're going to be happy. + + Your loving + + ANNE. + + + +VIII + + +ANNE AND COLIN + +i + +Autumn had passed. Colin's couch was drawn up before the fire in the +drawing-room. Anne sat with him there. + +He was better. He could listen for half an hour at a time when Anne read +to him--poems, short stories, things that were ended before Colin tired +of them. He ate and drank hungrily and his body began to get back its +strength. + +At noon, when the winter sun shone, he walked, first up and down the +terrace, then round and round the garden, then to the beech trees at the +top of the field, and then down the hill to the Manor Farm. On mild days +she drove him about the country in the dog-cart. She had tried motoring +but had had to give it up because Colin was frightened at the hooting, +grinding and jarring of the car. + +As winter went on Anne found that Colin was no worse in cold or wet +weather. He couldn't stand the noise and rush of the wind, but his +strange malady took no count of rain or snow. He shivered in the clear, +still frost, but it braced him all the same. Driving or strolling, she +kept him half the day in the open air. + +She saw that he liked best the places they had gone to when they were +children--the Manor Farm fields, High Slaughter, and Hayes Mill. They +were always going to the places where they had done things together. +When Colin talked sanely he was back in those times. He was safe there. +There, if anywhere, he could find his real self and be well. + +She had the feeling that Colin's future lay somewhere through his past. +If only she could get him back there, so that he could be what he had +been. There must be some way of joining up that time to this, if only +she could find a bridge, a link. She didn't know that she was the way, +she was the link binding his past to his present, bound up with his +youth, his happiness, his innocence, with the years before Queenie and +the War. + +She didn't know what Queenie had done to him. She didn't know that the +war had only finished what Queenie had begun. That was Colin's secret, +the hidden source of his fear. + +But he was safe with Anne because they were not in love with each other. +She left his senses at rest, and her affection never called for any +emotional response. She took him away from his fear; she kept him back +in his childhood, in his boyhood, in the years before Queenie, with a +continual, "Do you remember?" + +"Do you remember the walk to High Slaughter?" + +"Do you remember the booby-trap we set for poor Pinkney?" + +That was dangerous, for poor Pinkney was at the War. + +"Do you remember Benjy?" + +"Yes, rather." + +But Benjy was dangerous, too; for Jerrold had given him to her. She +could feel Colin shying. + +"He had a butterfly smut," he said. "Hadn't he? ...Do you remember how I +used to come and see you at Cheltenham?" + +"And Grannie and Aunt Emily, and how you used to play on their piano. +And how Grannie jumped when you came down crash on those chords in the +Waldstein." + +"Do you mean the _presto?_" + +"Yes. The last movement." + +"No wonder she jumped. I should jump now." He turned his mournful face +to her. "Anne--I shall never be able to play again." + +There was danger everywhere. In the end all ways led back to Colin's +malady. + +"Oh yes, you wall when you're quite strong." + +"I shall never be stronger." + +"You will. You're stronger already." + +She knew he was stronger. He could sleep three hours on end now and he +had left off screaming. + +And still the doors were left open between their rooms at night. He was +still afraid to sleep alone; he liked to know that she was there, close +to him. + +Instead of the dreams, instead of the sudden rushing, crashing horror, +he was haunted by a nameless dread. Dread of something he didn't know, +something that waited for him, something he couldn't face. Something +that hung over him at night, that was there with him in the morning, +that came between him and the light of the sun. + +Anne kept it away. Anne came between it and him. He was unhappy and +frightened when Anne was not there. + +It was always, "You're _not_ going, Anne?" + +"Yes. But I'm coming back." + +"How soon?" + +And she would say, "An hour;" or, "Half an hour," or, "Ten minutes." + +"Don't be longer." + +"No." + +And then: "I don't know how it is, Anne. But everything seems all right +when you're there, and all wrong when you're not." + + +ii + +The Manor Farm house stands in the hamlet of Upper Speed. It has the +grey church and churchyard beside it and looks across the deep road +towards Sutton's farm. + +The beautiful Jacobean house, the church and church-yard, Sutton's farm +and the rectory, the four cottages and the Mill, the river and its +bridge, lie close together in the small flat of the valley. Green +pastures slope up the hill behind them to the north; pink-brown arable +lands, ploughed and harrowed, are flung off to either side, east and +west. + +Northwards the valley is a slender slip of green bordering the slender +river. Southwards, below the bridge, the water meadows widen out past +Sutton's farm. From the front windows of the Manor Farm house you see +them, green between the brown trunks of the elms on the road bank. From +the back you look out across orchard and pasture to the black, still +water and yellow osier beds above the Mill. Beyond the water a double +line of beeches, bare delicate branches, rounded head after rounded +head, climbs a hillock in a steep curve, to part and meet again in a +thick ring at the top. + +The house front stretches along a sloping grass plot, the immense porch +built out like a wing with one ball-topped gable above it, a smaller +gable in the roof behind. On either side two rows of wide black windows, +heavy browed, with thick stone mullions. + +Barker, Jerrold Fielding's agent, used to live there; but before the +spring of nineteen sixteen Barker had joined up, Wyck Manor had been +turned into a home for convalescent soldiers, and Anne was living with +Colin at the Manor Farm. + +Half of her Ilford land had been taken by the government; and she had +let the rest together with the house and orchard. Instead of her own +estate she had the Manor to look after now. It had been impossible in +war-time to fill Barker's place, and Anne had become Jerrold's agent. +She had begun with a vague promise to give a look round now and then; +but when the spring came she found herself doing Barker's work, keeping +the farm accounts, ordering fertilizers, calculating so many +hundredweights of superphosphate of lime, or sulphate of ammonia, or +muriate of potash to the acre; riding about on Barker's horse, looking +after the ploughing; plodding through the furrows of the hill slopes to +see how the new drillers were working; going the round of the sheep-pens +to keep count of the sick ewes and lambs; carrying the motherless lambs +in her arms from the fold to the warm kitchen. + +She went through February rain and snow, through March wind and sleet, +and through the mists of the low meadows; her feet were loaded with +earth from the ploughed fields; her nostrils filled with the cold, rich +smell of the wet earth; the rank, sharp smell of swedes, the dry, +pungent smell of straw and hay; the thick, oily, woolly smell of the +folds, the warm, half-sweet, half sour smell of the cattle sheds, of +champed fodder, of milky cow's breath; the smell of hot litter and dung. + +At five and twenty she had reached the last clear decision of her +beauty. Dressed in riding coat and breeches, her body showed more +slender and more robust than ever. Rain, sun and wind were cosmetics to +her firm, smooth skin. Her eyes were bright dark, washed with the clean +air. + +On her Essex farm and afterwards at the War she had learned how to +handle men. Sulky Curtis, who grumbled under Barker's rule, surrendered +to Anne without a scowl. When Anne came riding over the Seven Acre +field, lazy Ballinger pulled himself together and ploughed through the +two last furrows that he would have left for next day in Barker's time. +Even for Ballinger and Curtis she had smiles that atoned for her little +air of imperious command. + +And Colin followed her about the farmyard and up the fields till he +tired and turned back. She would see him standing by the gate she had +passed through, looking after her with the mournful look he used to have +when he was a little boy and they left him behind. + +He would stand looking till Anne's figure, black on her black horse, +stood up against the skyline from the curve of the round-topped hill. It +dipped; it dipped and disappeared and Colin would go slowly home. + +At the first sound of her horse's hoofs in the yard he came out to meet +her. + +One day he said to her, "Jerrold'll be jolly pleased with what you've +done when he comes home." + +And then, "If he ever can be pleased with anything again." + +It was the first time he had said Jerrold's name. + +"That's what's been bothering me," he went on. "I can't think how +Jerrold's going to get over it. You remember what he was like when +Father died?" + +"Yes." She remembered. + +"Well--what's the War going to do to him? Look what it's done to me. He +minds things so much more than I do." + +"It doesn't take everybody the same way, Colin." + +"I don't suppose Jerrold'll get shell-shock. But he might get something +worse. Something that'll hurt him more. He must mind so awfully." + +"You may be sure he won't mind anything that could happen to himself." + +"Of course he won't. But the things that'll happen to other people. +Seeing the other chaps knocked about and killed." + +"He minds most the things that happen to the people he cares about. To +you and Eliot. They're the sort of things he can't face. He'd pretend +they couldn't happen. But the war's so big that he can't say it isn't +happening; he's got to stand up to it. And the things you stand up to +don't hurt you. I feel certain he'll come through all right." + +That was the turning point in Colin's malady. She thought: "If he can +talk about Jerrold he's getting well." + +The next day a letter came to her from Jerrold. He wrote: "I wish to +goodness I could get leave. I don't want it _all_ the time. I'm quite +prepared to stick this beastly job for any reasonable period; but a +whole year without leave, it's a bit thick..." + +"About Colin. Didn't I tell you he'd be all right? And it's all _you_, +Anne. You've made him; you needn't pretend you haven't. I want most +awfully to see you again. There are all sorts of things I'd like to say +to you, but I can't write 'em." + +She thought: "He's got over it at last, then. He won't be afraid of me +any more." + +Somehow, since the war she had felt that Jerrold would come back to her. +It was as if always, deep down and in secret, she had known that he +belonged to her and that she belonged to him as no other person could; +that whatever happened and however long a time he kept away from her he +would come back at some time, in some way. She couldn't distinguish +between Jerrold and her sense of Jerrold; and as nothing could separate +her from the sense of him, nothing could separate her from Jerrold +himself. He had part in the profound and secret life of her blood and +nerves and brain. + + + +IX + + +JERROLD + +i + +At last, in March, nineteen-sixteen, Jerrold had got leave. + +Anne was right; Jerrold had come through because he had had to stand up +to the War and face it. He couldn't turn away. It was too stupendous a +fact to be ignored or denied or in any way escaped from. And as he had +to "take" it, he took it laughing. Once in the thick of it, Jerrold was +sustained by his cheerful obstinacy, his inability to see the things he +didn't want to see. He admitted that there was a war, the most appalling +war, if you liked, that had ever been; but he refused, all the time, to +believe that the Allies would lose it; he refused from moment to moment +to believe that they could be beaten in any single action; he denied the +possibility of disaster to his own men. Disaster to himself--possibly; +probably, in theory; but not in practice. Not when he turned back in the +rain of the enemy's fire to find his captain who had dropped wounded +among the dead, when he swung him over his shoulder and staggered to the +nearest stretcher. He knew he would get through. It was inconceivable to +Jerrold that he should not get through. Even in his fifth engagement, +when his men broke and gave back in front of the German parapet, and he +advanced alone, shouting to them to come on, it was inconceivable that +they should not come on. And when they saw him, running forward by +himself, they gathered again and ran after him and the trench was taken +in a mad rush. + +Jerrold got his captaincy and two weeks' leave together. He had meant to +spend three days in London with his mother, three days in Yorkshire with +the Durhams, and the rest of his time at Upper Speed with Anne and +Colin. He was not quite sure whether he wanted to go to the Durhams. +More than anything he wanted to see Anne again. + +His last unbearable memory of her was wiped out by five years of India +and a year of war. He remembered the child Anne who played with him, the +girl Anne who went about with him, and the girl woman he had found in +her room at dawn. He tried to join on to her the image of the Anne that +Eliot wrote to him about, who had gone out to the war and come back from +it to look after Colin. He was in love with this image of her and ready +to be in love again with the real Anne. He would go back now and find +her and make her care for him. + +There had been a time, after his father's death, when he had tried to +make himself think that Anne had never cared for him, because he didn't +want to think she cared. Now that he did want it he wasn't sure. + +Not so sure as he was about little Maisie Durham. He knew Maisie cared. +That was why she had gone out to India. It was also why she had been +sent back again. He was afraid it might be why the Durhams had asked him +to stay with them as soon as he had leave. If that was so, he wasn't +sure whether he ought to stay with them, seeing that he didn't care for +Maisie. But since they had asked him, well, he could only suppose that +the Durhams knew what they were about. Perhaps Maisie had got over it. +The little thing had lots of sense. + +It hadn't been his fault in the beginning, Maisie's caring. Afterwards, +perhaps, in India, when he had let himself see more of her than he would +have done if he had known she cared; but that, again, was hardly his +fault since he didn't know. You don't see these things unless you're on +the lookout for them, and you're not on the lookout unless you're a +conceited ass. Then when he did see it, when he couldn't help seeing, +after other people had seen and made him see, it had been too late. + +But this was five years ago, and of course Maisie had got over it. There +would be somebody else now. Perhaps he would go down to Yorkshire. +Perhaps he wouldn't. + +At this point Jerrold realised that it depended on Anne. + +But before he saw Anne he would have to see his mother. And before he +saw his mother his mother had seen Anne and Colin. + + +ii + +And while Anne in Gloucestershire was answering Jerrold's letter, +Jerrold sat in the drawing-room of the house in Montpelier Square and +talked to his mother. They talked about Colin and Anne. + +"What's Colin's wife doing?" he said. + +"Queenie? She's driving a field ambulance car in Belgium." + +"Why isn't she looking after Colin?" + +"That isn't in Queenie's line. Besides--" + +"Besides what?" + +"Well, to tell the truth, I don't suppose she'll live with Colin +after--" + +"After _what_?" + +"Well, after Colin's living with Anne." + +Jerrold stiffened. He felt the blood rushing to his heart, betraying +him. His face was God only knew what awful colour. + +"You don't mean to say they--" + +"I don't mean to say I blame them, poor darlings. What were they to do?" + +"But" (he almost stammered it) "you don't know--you can't know--it +doesn't follow." + +"Well, of course, my dear, they haven't _told_ me. You don't shout these +things from the house-tops. But what is one to think? There they are; +there they've been for the last five months, living together at the +Farm, absolutely alone. Anne won't leave him. She won't have anybody +there. If you tell her it's not proper she laughs in your face. And +Colin swears he won't go back to Queenie. What _is_ one to think?" + +Jerrold covered his face with his hands. He didn't know. + +His mother went on in a voice of perfect sweetness. "Don't imagine I +think a bit the worse of Anne. She's been simply splendid. I never saw +anything like her devotion. She's brought Colin round out of the most +appalling state. We've no business to complain of a situation we're all +benefitting by. Some people can do these things and you forgive them. +Whatever Anne does or doesn't do she'll always be a perfect darling. As +for Queenie, I don't consider her for a minute. She's been simply asking +for it." + +He wondered whether it were really true. It didn't follow that Anne and +Colin were lovers because his mother said so; even supposing that she +really thought it. + +"You don't go telling everybody, I hope?" he said. + +"My dear Jerrold, what do you think I'm made of? I haven't even told +Anne's father. I've only told you because I thought you ought to know." + +"I see; you want to put me off Anne?" + +"I don't _want_ to. But it would, wouldn't it?" + +"Oh Lord, yes, if it was true. Perhaps it isn't." + +"Jerry dear, it may be awfully immoral of me, but for Colin's sake I +can't help hoping that it is. I did so want Anne to marry Colin--really +he's only right when he's with her--and if Queenie divorces him I +suppose she will." + +"But, mother, you _are_ going ahead. You may be quite wrong." + +"I may. You can only suppose--" + +"How on earth am I to know? I can't ask them." + +"No, you can't ask them." + +Of course he couldn't. He couldn't go to Colin and say, "Are you Anne's +lover?" He couldn't go to Anne and say, "Are you Colin's mistress?" + +"If they wanted us to know," said Adeline, "they'd have told us. There +you are." + +"Supposing it isn't true, do you imagine he cares for her?" + +"Yes, Jerrold. I'm quite, quite sure of that. I was down there last week +and saw them. He can't bear her out of his sight one minute. He couldn't +not care." + +"And Anne?" + +"Oh, well, Anne isn't going to give herself away. But I'm certain... +Would she stick down there, with everybody watching them and thinking +things and talking, if she didn't care so much that nothing matters?" + +"But would she--would she--" + +The best of his mother was that in these matters her mind jumped to meet +yours halfway. You hadn't got to put things into words. + +"My dear, if you think she wouldn't, supposing she cared enough, you +don't know Anne." + +"I shall go down," he said, "and see her." + +"If you do, for goodness' sake be careful. Even supposing there's +nothing in it, you mustn't let Colin see you think there is. He'd feel +then that he ought to leave her for fear of compromising her. And if he +leaves her he'll be as bad as ever again. And _I_ can't manage him. +Nobody can manage him but Anne. That's how they've tied our hands. We +can't say anything." + +"I see." + +"After all, Jerrold, it's very simple. If they're innocent we must leave +them in their innocence. And if they're not----" + +"If they're not?" + +"Well, we must leave them in _that_." + +Jerrold laughed. But he was not in the least amused. + + +iii + +He went down to Wyck the next day; he couldn't wait till the day after. + +Not that he had the smallest hope of Anne now. Even if his mother's +suspicion were unfounded, she had made it sufficiently clear to him that +Anne was necessary to Colin; and, that being so, the chances were that +Colin cared for her. In these matters his mother was not such a fool as +to be utterly mistaken. On every account, therefore, he must be prepared +to give Anne up. He couldn't take her away from Colin, and he wouldn't +if he could. It was his own fault. What was done was done six years ago. +He should have loved Anne then. + +Going down in the train he thought of her, a little girl with short +black hair, holding a black-and-white rabbit against her breast, a +little girl with a sweet mouth ready for kisses, who hung herself round +his neck with sudden, loving arms. A big girl with long black hair tied +in an immense black bow, a girl too big for kisses. A girl sitting in +her room between her white bed and the window with a little black cat in +her arms. Her platted hair lay in a thick black rope down her back. He +remembered how he had kissed her; he remembered the sliding of her sweet +face against his, the pressure of her darling head against his shoulder, +the salt taste of her tears. It was inconceivable that he had not loved +Anne then. Why hadn't he? Why had he let his infernal cowardice stop +him? Eliot had loved her. + +Then he remembered Colin. Little Col-Col running after them down the +field, calling to them to take him with them; Colin's hands playing; +Colin's voice singing _Lord Rendal_. He tried to think of Queenie, the +woman Colin had married. He had no image of her. He could see nothing +but Colin and Anne. + +She was there alone at the station to meet him. She came towards him +along the platform. Their eyes looked for each other. Something choked +his voice back. She spoke first. + +"Jerrold------" + +"Anne." A strange, thick voice deep down in his throat. + +Their hands clasped one into the other, close and strong. + +"Colin wanted to come, but I wouldn't let him. It would have been too +much for him. He might have cried or something ... You mustn't mind if +he cries when he sees you. He isn't quite right yet." + +"No, but he's better." + +"Ever so much better. He can do things on the farm now. He looks after +the lambs and the chickens and the pigs. It's good for him to have +something to do." + +Jerrold agreed that it was good. + +They had reached the Manor Farm now. + +"Don't take any notice if he cries," she said. + +Colin waited for him in the hall of the house. He was trying hard to +control himself, but when he saw Jerrold coming up the path he broke +down in a brief convulsive crying that stopped suddenly at the touch of +Jerrold's hand. + +Anne left them together. + + +iv + +"Don't go, Anne." + +Colin called her back when she would have left them, again after dinner. + +"Don't you want Jerrold to yourself?" she said. + +"We don't want you to go, do we, Jerrold?" + +"Rather not." + +Jerrold found himself looking at them all the time. He had tried to +persuade himself that what his mother had told him was not true. But he +wasn't sure. Look as he would, he was not sure. + +If only his mother hadn't told him, he might have gone on believing in +what she had called their innocence. But she had shown him what to look +for, and for the life of him he couldn't help seeing it at every turn: +in Anne's face, in the way she looked at Colin, the way she spoke to +him; in her kindness to him, her tender, quiet absorption. In the way +Colin's face turned after her as she came and went; in his restlessness +when she was not there; in the peace, the sudden smoothing of his vexed +brows, when having gone she came back again. + +Supposing it were true that they-- + +He couldn't bear it to be true; his mind struggled against the truth of +it, but if it _were_ true he didn't blame them. So far from being untrue +or even improbable, it seemed to Jerrold the most likely thing in the +world to have happened. It had happened to so many people since the war +that he couldn't deny its likelihood. There was only one thing that +could have made it impossible--if Anne had cared for him. And what +reason had he to suppose she cared? After six years? After he had told +her he was trying to get away from her? He had got away; and he saw a +sort of dreadful justice in the event that made it useless for him to +come back. If anybody was to blame it was himself. Himself and Queenie, +that horrible girl Colin had married. + +When he asked himself whether it was the sort of thing that Anne would +be likely to do he thought: Why not, if she loved him, if she wanted to +make him happy? How could he tell what Anne would or would not do? She +had said long ago that he couldn't, that she might do anything. + +They spent the evening talking, by fits and starts, with long silences +in between. They talked about the things that happened before the war, +before Colin's marriage, the things they had done together. They talked +about the farm and Anne's work, about Barker and Curtis and Ballinger, +about Mrs. Sutton who watched them from her house across the road. + +Mrs. Sutton had once been Colin's nurse up at the Manor: she had married +old Sutton after his first wife's death; old Sutton who wouldn't die and +let Anne have his farm. And now she watched them as if she were afraid +of what they might do next. + +"Poor old Nanna," Jerrold said. + +"Goodness knows what she thinks of us," said Anne. + +"It doesn't matter what she thinks," said Colin. + +And they laughed; they laughed; and Jerrold was not quite sure, yet. + +But before the night was over he thought he was. + +They had given him the little room in the gable. It led out of Colin's +room. And there on the chimneypiece he saw an old photograph of himself +at the age of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given it to +Anne on the last day of the midsummer holidays, nineteen hundred. Also +he found a pair of Anne's slippers under the bed, and, caught in a crack +of the dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading out of +Colin's was Anne's room. + +And Colin called out to him, "Do you mind leaving the door open, Jerry? +I can't sleep if it's shut." + + +v + +It was Jerrold's second day. He and Anne climbed the steep beech walk to +the top of the hillock and sat there under the trees. Up the fields on +the opposite rise they could see the grey walls and gables of the Manor, +and beside it their other beech ring at the top of the last field. + +They were silent for a while. He was intensely aware of her as she +turned her head round, slowly, to look at him, straight and full. + +And the sense of his nearness came over her, soaking in deeper, swamping +her brain. Her wide open eyes darkened; her breathing came in tight, +short jerks; her nerves quivered. She wondered whether he could feel +their quivering, whether he could hear her jerking breath, whether he +could see something queer about her eyes. But she had to look at him, +not shyly, furtively, but straight and full, taking him in. + +He was changed. The war had changed him. His face looked harder, the +mouth closer set under the mark of the little clipped fawn-brown +moustache. His eyes that used to flash their blue so gayly, to rest so +lightly, were fixed now, dark and heavy with memory. They had seen too +much. They would never lose that dark memory of the things they had +seen. She wondered, was Colin right? Had the war done worse things to +Jerrold than it had done to him? He would never tell her. + +"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "did you have a good time in India?" + +"I suppose so. I dare say I thought I had." + +"And you hadn't?" + +"Well, I can't conceive how I could have had." + +"You mean it seems so long ago." + +"No, I don't mean that." + +"You've forgotten." + +"I don't mean that, either." + +Silence. + +"Look here, Anne, I want to know about Colin. Has he been very bad?" + +"Yes, he has." + +"How bad?" + +"So bad that sometimes I was glad you weren't there to see him. You +remember when he was a kid, how frightened he used to be at night. Well, +he's been like that all the time. He's like that now, only he's a bit +better. He doesn't scream now.... All the time he kept on worrying about +you. He only told me that the other day. He seemed to think the war must +have done something more frightful to you than it had done to him; he +said, because you'd mind it more. I told him it wasn't the sort of thing +you'd mind most." + +"It isn't the sort of thing it's any good minding. I don't suppose I +minded more than the other chaps. If anything had happened to you, or +him, or Eliot, I'd have minded that." + +"I know. That's what I told him. I knew you'd come through." + +"Eliot was dead right about Colin. He knew he wouldn't. He ought never +to have gone out." + +"He wanted so awfully to go. But Eliot could have stopped him if it +hadn't been for Queenie. She hunted and hounded him out. She told him he +was funking. Fancy Colin funking!" + +"What's Queenie like?" + +"She's like that. She never funks herself, but she wants to make out +that everybody else does." + +"Do you like Queenie?" + +"No. I hate her. I don't mind her hounding him out so much since she +went herself; I _do_ mind her leaving him. Do you know, she's never even +tried to come and see him." + +"Good God! what a beast the woman must be. What on earth made him marry +her?" + +"He was frightfully in love. An awful sort of love that wore him out and +made him wretched. And now he's afraid for his life of her. I believe +he's afraid of the war ending because then she'll come back." + +"And if she does come back?" + +"She may try and take Colin away from me. But she shan't. She can't take +him if he doesn't want to go. She left him to me to look after and I +mean to stick to him. I won't have him frightened and made all ill again +just when I've got him well." + +"I'm afraid you've had a very hard time." + +"Not so hard as you think." + +She smiled a mysterious, quiet smile, as if she contemplated some happy +secret. He thought he knew it, Anne's secret. + +"Do you think it's funny of me to be living here with Colin?" + +He laughed. + +"I suppose it's all right. You always had pluck enough for anything." + +"It doesn't take pluck to stick to Colin." + +"Moral pluck." + +"No. Not even moral." + +"You were always fond of him, weren't you?" + +That was about as far as he dare go. + +She smiled her strange smile again. + +"Yes. I was always fond of him.... You see, he wants me more than +anybody else ever did or ever will." + +"I'm not so sure about that. But he always did get what he wanted." + +"Oh, does he! How about Queenie?" + +"Even Queenie. I suppose he wanted her at the time." + +"He doesn't want her now. Poor Colin." + +"You mustn't ask me to pity him." + +"Ask you? He'd hate you to pity him. I'd hate you to pity _me_." + +"I shouldn't dream of pitying you, any more than I should dream of +criticising you." + +"Oh, you may criticise as much as you like." + +"No. Whatever you did it would make no difference. I should know it was +right because you did it." + +"It wouldn't be. I do heaps of wrong things, but _this_ is right." + +"I'm sure it is." "Here's Colin," she said. + +He had come out to look for them. He couldn't bear to be alone. + + +vi + +Jerrold had gone to Sutton's Farm to say good-bye to their old nurse, +Nanny Sutton. + +Nanny talked about the war, about the young men who had gone from Wyck +and would not come back, about the marvel of Sutton's living on through +it all, and he so old and feeble. She talked about Colin and Anne. + +"Oh, Master Jerrold," she said, "I do think it's a pity she should be +livin' all alone with Mr. Colin like this 'ere." + +"They're all right, Nanny. You needn't worry." + +"Well--well, Miss Anne was always one to go her own way and make it seem +the right way." + +"You may be perfectly sure it is the right way." + +"I'm not sayin' as 'tisn't. And I dunnow what Master Colin'd a done +without her. But it do make people talk. There's a deal of strange +things said in the place." + +"Don't listen to them." + +"Eh dear, I'll not 'ear a word. When anybody says anything to me I tell +'em straight they'd oughter be ashamed of themselves, back-bitin' and +slanderin'." + +"That's right, Nanny, you give it them in the neck." + +"If it'd only end in talk, but there's been harm done to the innocent. +There's Mr. and Mrs. Kimber. Kimber, 'e's my 'usband's cousing." Nanny +paused. + +"What about him?" + +"Well, 'tis this way. They're doin' for Miss Anne, livin' in the house +with her. Kimber, 'e sees to the garden and Mrs. Kimber she cooks and +that. And Kimber--that's my 'usband's cousin--'e was gardener at the +vicarage. And now 'e's lost his job along of Master Colin and Miss +Anne." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well, sir, 'tis the vicar. 'E says they 'adn't oughter be livin' in the +house with Miss Anne, because of the talk there's been. So 'e says +Kimber must choose between 'em. And Kimber, 'e says 'e'd have minded +what parson said if it had a bin a church matter or such like, but +parson or no parson, 'e says 'e's his own master an' 'e won't have no +interferin' with him and his missus. So he's lost his job." + +"Poor old Kimber. What a beastly shame." + +"Eh, 'tis a shame to be sure." + +"Never mind; I can give him a bigger job at the Manor." + +"Oh, Master Jerrold, if you would, it'd be a kindness, I'm sure. And +Kimber 'e deserves it, the way they've stuck to Miss Anne." + +"He does indeed. It's pretty decent of them. I'll see about that before +I go." + +"Thank you, sir. Sutton and me thought maybe you'd do something for him, +else I shouldn't have spoken. And if there's anything I can do for Miss +Anne I'll do it. I've always looked on her as one of you. But 'tis a +pity, all the same." + +"You mustn't say that, Nanny. I tell you it's all perfectly right." + +"Well, I shall never say as 'tisn't. No, nor think it. You can trust me +for that, Master Jerrold." + +He thought: Poor old Nanny. She lies like a brick. + + +vii + +He said to himself that he would never know the truth about Anne and +Colin. If he went to them and asked them he would be no nearer knowing. +They would have to lie to him to save each other. In any case, his +mother had made it clear to him that as long as Anne had to look after +Colin he couldn't ask them. If they were innocent their innocence must +be left undisturbed. If they were not innocent, well--he had lost the +right to know it. Besides, he was sure, as sure as if they had told him. + +He knew how it would be. Colin's wife would come home and she would +divorce Colin and he would marry Anne. So far as Jerrold could see, that +was his brother's only chance of happiness and sanity. + +As for himself, there was nothing he could do now but clear out and +leave them. + +And, as he had no desire to go back to his mother and hear about Anne +and Colin all over again, he went down to the Durhams' in Yorkshire for +the rest of his leave. + +He hadn't been there five days before he and Maisie were engaged; and +before the two weeks were up he had married her. + + + +X + + +ELIOT + +i + +Eliot stood in the porch of the Manor Farm house. There was nobody there +to greet him. Behind him on the oak table in the hall the wire he had +sent lay unopened. + +It was midday in June. + +All round the place the air was sweet with the smell of the mown hay, +and from the Broad Pasture there came the rattle and throb of the +mowing-machines. + +Eliot went down the road and through the gate into the hay-field. Colin +and Anne were there. Anne at the top of the field drove the mower, +mounted up on the shell-shaped iron seat, white against the blue sky. +Colin at the bottom, slender and tall above the big revolving wheel, +drove the rake. The tedding machine, driven by a farm hand, went +between. Its iron-toothed rack caught the new-mown hay, tossed it and +scattered it on the field. Beside the long glistening swaths the cut +edge of the hay stood up clean and solid as a wall. Above it the raised +plane of the grass-tops, brushed by the wind, quivered and swayed, +whitish green, greenish white, in a long shimmering undulation. + +Eliot went on to meet Anne and Colin as they turned and came up the +field again. + +When they saw him they jumped down and came running. + +"Eliot, you never told us." + +"I wired at nine this morning." + +"There's nobody in the house and we've not been in since breakfast at +seven," Colin said. + +"It's twelve now. Time you knocked off for lunch, isn't it?" + +"Are you all right, Eliot?" said Anne. + +"Rather." + +He gave a long look at them, at their sun-burnt faces, at their clean, +slender grace, Colin in his cricketing flannels, and Anne in her +land-girl's white-linen coat, knickerbockers, and grey wideawake. + +"Colin doesn't look as if there was much the matter with him. He might +have been farming all his life." + +"So I have," said Colin; "considering that I haven't lived till now." + +And they went back together towards the house. + + +ii + +Colin's and Anne's work was done for the day. The hay in the Broad +Pasture was mown and dried. Tomorrow it would be heaped into cocks and +carried to the stackyard. + +It was the evening of Eliot's first day. He and Anne sat out under the +apple trees in the orchard. + +"What on earth have you done to Colin?" he said. "I expected to find him +a perfect wreck." + +"He was pretty bad three months ago. But it's good for him being down +here in the place he used to be happy in. He knows he's safe here. It's +good for him doing jobs about the farm, too." + +"I imagine it's good for him being with you." + +"Oh, well, he knows he's safe with me." + +"Very safe. He owes it to you that he's sane now. You must have been +astonishingly wise with him." + +"It didn't take much wisdom. Not more than it used to take when he was a +little frightened kid. That's all he was when he came back from the war, +Eliot." + +"The point is that you haven't treated him like a kid. You've made a man +of him again. You've given him a man's life and a man's work." + +"That's what I want to do. When he's trained he can look after Jerrold's +land. You know poor Barker died last month of septic pneumonia. The camp +was full of it." + +"I know." + +"What do you think of my training Colin?" + +"It's all right for him, Anne. But how about you?" + +"Me? Oh, _I'm_ all right. You needn't worry about me." + +"I do worry about you. And your father's worrying." + +"Dear old Daddy. It _is_ silly of him. As if anything mattered but +Colin." + +"_You_ matter. You see, your father doesn't like your being here alone +with him. He's afraid of what people may think." + +"I'm not. I don't care what people think. They've no business to." + +"No; but they will, and they do...You know what I mean, Anne, don't +you?" + +"I suppose you mean they think I'm Colin's mistress. Is that it?" + +"I'm afraid it is. They can't think anything else. It's beastly of them, +I know, but this is a beastly world, dear, and it doesn't do to go on +behaving as if it wasn't." + +"I don't care. If people are beastly it's their look-out, not mine. The +beastlier they are the less I care." + +"I don't suppose you care if the vicar's wife won't call or if Lady +Corbett and the Hawtreys cut you. But that's why." + +"Is it? I never thought about it. I'm too busy to go and see them and I +supposed they were too busy to come and see me. I certainly don't care." + +"If it was people you cared about?" + +"Nobody I care about would think things like that of me." + +"Anne dear, I'm not so sure." + +"Then it shows how much they care about _me_." + +"But it's because they care." + +"I can't help it. They may care, but they don't know. They can't know +anything about me if they think that." + +"And you honestly don't mind?" + +"I mind what _you_ think. But you don't think it, Eliot, do you?" + +"I? Good Lord no! Do you mind what mother thinks?" + +"Yes, I mind. But it doesn't matter very much." + +"It would matter if Jerrold thought it." + +"Oh Eliot--_does_ he?" + +"I don't suppose he thinks precisely that. But I'm pretty sure he +thought you and Colin cared for each other." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"His marrying Maisie like that." + +"Why shouldn't he marry her?" + +"Because it's you he cares about." + +Eliot's voice was quiet and heavy. She knew that what he said was true. +That quiet, heavy voice was the voice of her own innermost conviction. +Yet under the shock of it she sat silent, not looking at him, looking +with wide, fixed eyes at the pattern the apple boughs made on the sky. + +"How do you know?" she said, presently. + +"Because of the way he talked to mother before he came to see you here. +She says he was frightfully upset when she told him about you and +Colin." + +"She told him _that?_" + +"Apparently." + +"What did she do it for, Eliot?" + +"What does mother do anything for? I imagine she wanted to put Jerrold +off so that you could stick on with Colin. You've taken him off her +hands and she wants him kept off." + +"So she told him I was Colin's mistress." + +"Mind you, she doesn't think a bit the worse of you for that. She +admires you for it no end." + +"Do you suppose I care what she thinks? It's her making Jerrold think +it...Eliot, how could she?" + +"She could, because she only sees things as they affect herself." + +"Do you believe she really thinks it?" + +"She's made herself think it because she wanted to." + +"But why--why should she want to?" + +"I've told you why. She's afraid of having to look after Colin. I've no +illusions about mother. She's always been like that. She wouldn't see +what she was doing to you. Before she did it she'd persuaded herself +that it was Colin and not Jerrold that you cared for. And she wouldn't +do it deliberately at all. I know it has all the effect of low cunning, +but it isn't. It's just one of her sudden movements. She'd rush into it +on a blind impulse." + +Anne saw it all, she saw that Adeline had slandered her to Jerrold and +to Eliot, that she had made use of her love for Colin, which was her +love for Jerrold, to betray her; that she had betrayed her to safeguard +her own happy life, without pity and without remorse; she had done all +of these things and none of them. They were the instinctive movements of +her funk. Where Adeline's ease and happiness were concerned she was one +incarnate funk. You couldn't think of her as a reasonable and +responsible being, to be forgiven or unforgiven. + +"It doesn't matter how she did it. It's done now," she said. + +"Really, Anne, it was too bad of Colin. He oughtn't to have let you." + +"He couldn't help it, poor darling. He wasn't in a state. Don't put that +into his head. It just had to happen... I don't care, Eliot. If it was +to be done again to-morrow I'd do it. Only, if I'd known, I could have +told Jerrold the truth. The others can think what they like. It'll only +make me stick to Colin all the more. I promised Jerrold I'd look after +him and I shall as long as he wants me. It serves them all right. They +all left him to me--Daddy and Aunt Adeline and Queenie, I mean--and they +can't stop me now." + +"Mother doesn't want to stop you. It's your father." + +"I'll write and tell Daddy. Besides, it's too late. If I left Colin +to-morrow it wouldn't stop the scandal. My reputation's gone and I can't +get it back, can I?" + +"Dear Anne, you don't know how adorable you are without it." + +"Look here, Eliot, what did your mother tell _you_ for?" + +"Same reason. To put me off, too." + +They looked at each other and smiled. Across their memories, across the +years of war, across Anne's agony they smiled. Besides its courage and +its young, candid cynicism, Anne's smile expressed her utter trust in +him. + +"As if," Eliot said, "it would have made the smallest difference." + +"Wouldn't it have?" + +"No, Anne. Nothing would." + +"That's what Jerrold said. And _he_ thought it. I wondered what he +meant." + +"He meant what I mean." + +The moments passed, ticked off by the beating of his heart, time and his +heart beating violently together. Not one of them was his moment, not +one would serve him for what he had to say, falling so close on their +intolerable conversation. He meant to ask Anne to marry him; but if he +did it now she would suspect him of chivalry; it would look as if he +wanted to make up to her for all she had lost through Colin; as if he +wanted more than anything to save her. + +So Eliot, who had waited so long, waited a little longer, till the +evening of his last day. + + +iii + +Anne had gone up with him to Wyck Manor, to see the soldiers. Ever since +they had come there she had taken cream and fruit to them twice a week +from the Farm. Unaware of what was thought of her, she never knew that +the scandal of young Fielding and Miss Severn had penetrated the +Convalescent Home with the fruit and cream. And if she had known it she +would not have stayed away. People's beastliness was no reason why she +shouldn't go where she wanted, where she had always gone. The +Convalescent Home belonged to the Fieldings, and the Fieldings were her +dearest friends who had been turned into relations by her father's +marriage. So this evening, absorbed in the convalescents, she never saw +the matron's queer look at her or her pointed way of talking only to +Eliot. + +Eliot saw it. + +He thought: "It doesn't matter. She's so utterly good that nothing can +touch her. All the same, if she marries me she'll be safe from this sort +of thing." + +They had come to the dip of the valley and the Manor Farm water. + +"Let's go up the beech walk," he said. + +They went up and sat in the beech ring where Anne had sat with Jerrold +three months ago. Eliot never realised how repeatedly Jerrold had been +before him. + +"Anne," he said, "it's more than five years since I asked you to marry +me." + +"Is it, Eliot?" + +"Do you remember I said then I'd never give you up?" + +"I remember. Unless Jerrold got me, you said. Well, he hasn't got me." + +"I wouldn't want you to tie yourself up with me if there was the +remotest chance of Jerrold; but, as there isn't, don't you think--" + +"No, Eliot, I don't." + +"But you do care for me, Anne, a little. I know you do." + +"I care for you a great deal; but not in that sort of way." + +"I'm not asking you to care for me in the way you care for Jerrold. You +may care for me any way you please if you'll only marry me. You don't +know how awfully little I'd be content to take." + +"I shouldn't be content to give it, though. You oughtn't to have +anything but the best." + +"It would be the best for me, you see." + +"Oh no, Eliot, it wouldn't. You only think it would because you're an +angel. It would be awful of me to give so little when I take such a lot. +I know what your loving would be." + +"If you know you must have thought of it. And if you've thought of it--" + +"I've only thought of it to see how impossible it is. It mightn't be if +I could leave off loving Jerrold. But I can't...Eliot, I've got the +queerest feeling about him. I know you'll think me mad, when he's gone +and married somebody else, but I feel all the time as if he hadn't, as +if he belonged to me and always had; and I to him. Whoever Maisie's +married it isn't Jerrold. Not the real Jerrold." + +"The fact remains that she's married him." + +"No. Not him. Only a bit of him. Some bit that doesn't matter." + +"Anne darling, I'd try not to think that." + +"I don't think it. I feel it. Down there, deep inside me. I've always +felt that Jerrold would come back to me and he came back. Then there was +Colin. He'll come back again." + +"Then there'll be Maisie." + +"No, then there won't be Maisie. There won't be anything if he really +comes...Now you see how mad I am. Now you see how awful it would be to +marry me." + +"No, Anne. I see it's the only way to keep you safe." + +"Safe from what? Safe from Jerrold? I don't want to be safe from him. +Eliot, I'm telling you this because you trust me. I want you to see me +as I really am, so that you won't want to marry me any more." + +"Ah, that's not the way to make me. Nothing you say makes any +difference. Nothing you could do would make any difference." + +"Supposing it had been true what your mother said, wouldn't that?" + +"No. If you'd given yourself to Colin I should only have thought it was +your goodness. It would have been good because you did it." + +"How queer. That's what Jerrold said. Then he _did_ love me." + +"I told you he loved you." + +"Then I don't care. Nothing else matters." + +"That's all you have to say to me?" + +"Yes. Unless I lie." + +"You'd lie for Jerrold." + +"For him. Not to him. I should never need to." + +"You've no need to lie to me, dear. I know you better than he does. You +forget that I didn't think what he thought." + +"That only shows that he knew." + +"Knew what?" + +"What I am. What I might do if I really cared." + +"There are things you'd never do. You'd never do anything mean or +dishonourable or cruel." + +"Oh, you don't know what I'd do...Don't worry, Eliot. I shall be too +busy with the land and with Colin to do very much." + +"I'm not worrying." + +All the same he wondered which of them knew Anne best, he or Anne +herself, or Jerrold. + + + +XI + + +INTERIM + +i + +Colin thought with terror of the time when Queenie would come back from +the war. At any moment she might get leave and come; if she had not had +it yet that only made it more likely that she would have it soon. + +The vague horror that waited for him every morning had turned into this +definite fear of Queenie. He was afraid of her temper, of her voice and +eyes, of her crude, malignant thoughts, of her hatred of Anne. More than +anything he was afraid of her power over him, of her vehement, +exhausting love. He was afraid of her beauty. + +One morning, early in September, the wire came. Colin shook with +agitation as he read it. + +"What is it?" Anne said. + +"Queenie. She's got leave. She'll be here today. At four o'clock." + +"Don't you want to see her?" + +"No, I don't." + +"Then you'd better drive over to Kingden and look at those bullocks of +Ledbury's." + +"I don't know anything about bullocks. They ought to be straight lines +from their heads to their tails. That's about all I know." + +"Never mind, you'll have gone to look at bullocks. And you can tell +Ledbury I'm coming over to-morrow. Do you mind driving yourself?" + +Colin did mind. He was afraid to drive by himself; but he was much more +afraid of Queenie. + +"You can take Harry. And leave me to settle Queenie." + +Colin went off with Harry to Chipping Kingden. And at four o'clock +Queenie came. Her hard, fierce eyes stared past Anne, looking for Colin. + +"Where's Colin?" she said. + +"He had to go out, but he'll be back before dinner." + +Presently Queenie asked if she might go upstairs. As they went you could +see her quick, inquisitive eyes sweeping and flashing. + +The door of Colin's room stood open. + +"Is that Colin's room?" + +"Yes." + +She went in, opened the inner door and looked into the gable room. + +"Who sleeps here?" she said. + +"I do," said Anne. + +"You?" + +"Have you any objection?" + +"You might as well sleep in my husband's room." + +"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's asleep or awake." + +"_Can_ you? And, please, how long has this been going on?" + +"I've been sleeping in this room since November. Before that we had our +old rooms at the Manor. There was a passage between, you remember. But +I left the doors wide open." + +"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's asleep or awake." + +"Can you? And, please, how long has this been going on?" + +"I've been sleeping in this room since November. Before that we had our +old rooms at the Manor. There was a passage between, you remember. But I +left the doors wide open." + +"I suppose," said Queenie, with furious calm, "you want me to divorce +him?" + +"Divorce him? Why on earth should you? Just because I looked after him +at night? I _had_ to. There wasn't anybody else. And he was afraid to +sleep alone. He is still. But he's all right as long as he knows I'm +there." + +"You expect me to believe that's all there is in it?" + +"No, I don't, considering what your mind's like." + +"Oh yes, when people do dirty things it's always other people's dirty +minds. Do you imagine I'm a fool, Anne?" + +"You're an awful fool if you think Colin's my lover." + +"I think it, and I say it." + +"If you think it you're a fool. If you say it you're a liar. A damned +liar." + +"And is Colin's mother a liar, too?" + +"Yes, but not a damned one. It would serve you jolly well right, +Queenie, if he _was_ my lover, after the way you left him to me." + +"I didn't leave him to you. I left him to his mother." + +"Anyhow, you left him." + +"I couldn't help it. _You_ were not wanted at the front and I was. I +couldn't leave hundreds of wounded soldiers just for Colin." + +"_I_ had to. He was in an awful state. I've looked after him day and +night; I've got him almost well now, and I think the least you can do is +to keep quiet and let him alone." + +"I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall divorce him as soon as the +war's over." + +"It isn't over yet. And I don't advise you to try. No decent barrister +would touch your case, it's so rotten." + +"Not half so rotten as you'll look when it's in all the papers." + +"You can't frighten me that way." + +"Can't I? I suppose you'll say you were looking, poor darling, if you do +bring your silly old action. Only please don't do it till he's quite +well, or he'll be ill again...I think that's tea going in. Will you go +down?" + +They went down. Tea was laid in the big bare hall. The small round oak +table brought them close together. Anne waited on Queenie with every +appearance of polite attention. Queenie ate and drank in long, fierce +silences; for her hunger was even more imperious than her pride. + +"I don't _want_ to eat your food," she said at last. "I'm only doing it +because I'm starving. I dined with Colin's mother last night. It was the +first dinner I've eaten since I went to the war." + +"You needn't feel unhappy about it," said Anne. "It's Eliot's house and +Jerrold's food. How's Cutler?" + +"Much the same as when you saw him." Queenie answered quietly, but her +face was red. + +"And that Johnnie--what was his name?--who took my place?" + +Queenie's flush darkened. She was holding her mouth so tight that the +thin red line of the lips faded. + +"Noel Fenwick," said Anne, suddenly remembering. + +"What about him?" Queenie's throat moved as if she swallowed something +big and hard. + +"Is he there still?" + +"He was when I left." + +Her angry, defiant eyes were fixed on the open doorway. You could see +she was waiting for Colin, ready to fall on him and tear him as soon as +he came in. + +"Am I to see Colin or not?" she said as she rose. + +"Have you anything to say to him?" + +"Only what I've said to you." + +"Then you won't see him. In fact I think you'd better not see him at +all." + +"You mean he funks it?" + +"I funk it for him. He isn't well enough to be raged at and threatened +with proceedings. It'll upset him horribly and I don't see what good +it'll do you." + +"No more do I. I'm not going to live with him after this. You can tell +him that. Tell him I don't want to see him or speak to him again." + +"I see. You just came down to make a row." + +"You don't suppose I came down to stay with you two?" + +Queenie was so far from coming down to stay that she had taken rooms for +the night at the White Hart in Wyck. Anne drove her there. + + +ii + +Two and a half years passed. Anne's work on the farm filled up her days +and marked them. Her times were ploughing time and the time for sowing: +wheat first, and turnips after the wheat, barley after the turnips, +sainfoin, grass and clover after the barley. Oats in the five-acre field +this year; in the seven-acre field the next. Lambing time, calving time, +cross-ploughing and harrowing, washing and shearing time, time for +hoeing; hay time and harvest. Then threshing time and ploughing again. + +All summer the hard fight against the charlock, year after year the +same. You harrowed it out and ploughed it down and sprayed it with +sulphate of copper; you sowed vetches and winter corn to crowd it out; +and always it sprang up again, flaring in bright yellow stripes and fans +about the hills. The air was sweet with its smooth, delicious smell. + +Always the same clear-cut pattern of the fields; but the colors shifted. +The slender, sharp-pointed triangle that was jade-green last June, this +June was yellow-brown. The square under the dark comb of the plantation +that had been yellow-brown was emerald; the wide-open fan beside it that +had been emerald was pink. By August the emerald had turned to red-gold +and the jade-green to white. + +These changes marked the months and the years, a bright patterned, +imperceptibly moving measure, rolling time off across the hills. + +Nineteen-sixteen, seventeen. Nineteen-eighteen and the armistice. +Nineteen-nineteen and the peace. + + +iii + +In the spring of that year Anne and Colin were still together at the +Manor Farm. He was stronger. But, though he did more and more work every +year, he was still unfit to take over the management himself. +Responsibility fretted him and he tired soon. He could do nothing +without Anne. + +He was now definitely separated from his wife. Queenie had come back +from the war a year ago. As soon as it was over she had begun to rage +and consult lawyers and write letters two or three times a week, +threatening to drag Anne and Colin through the Divorce Court. But Miss +Mullins (once the secretary of Dr. Cutler's Field Ambulance Corps), +recovering at the Farm from an excess of war work, reassured them. +Queenie, she said, was only bluffing. Queenie was not in a position to +bring an action against any husband, she had been too notorious herself. +Miss Mullins had seen things, and she intimated that no defence could +stand against the evidence she could give. + +And in the end Queenie left off talking about divorce and contented +herself with a judicial separation. + +Colin still woke every morning to his dread of some blank, undefined +disaster; but, as if Queenie and the war had made one obsession, he was +no longer haunted by the imminent crash of phantom shells. It was +settled that he was to live with Jerrold and Maisie when they came back +to the Manor, while Anne stayed on by herself at the Farm. + +Every now and then Eliot came down to see them. He had been sent home +early in nineteen-seventeen with a shrapnel wound in his left leg, the +bone shattered. He obtained his discharge at the price of a permanent +limp, and went back to his research work. + +For the last two years he had been investigating trench fever, with +results that were to make him famous. But that was not for another year. + +In February, nineteen-nineteen, Jerrold had come back. He and Maisie had +been living in London ever since he had left the Army, filling in time +till Wyck Manor would be no longer a Home for Convalescent Soldiers. He +had tried to crowd into this interval all the amusement he hadn't had +for four years. His way was to crush down the past with the present; to +pile up engagements against the future, party on party, dances on +suppers and suppers on plays; to dine every evening at some place where +they hadn't dined before; to meet lots of nice amusing people with +demobilised minds who wouldn't talk to him about the war; to let himself +go in bursts of exquisitely imbecile laughter; never to be quiet for an +hour, never to be alone with himself, never to be long alone with +Maisie. + +After the first week of it this sort of thing ceased to amuse him, but +he went on with it because he thought it amused Maisie. + +There was something he missed; something he wanted and hadn't got. At +night, when he lay awake, alone with himself at last, he knew that it +was Anne. + +And he went on laughing and amusing Maisie; and Maisie, with a +heart-breaking sweetness, laughed back at him and declared herself +amused. She had never had such a jolly time in all her life, she said. + +Then, very early in the spring, Maisie went down to her people in +Yorkshire to recover from the jolly time she had had. The convalescent +soldiers had all gone, and Wyck Manor, rather worn and shabby, was Wyck +Manor again. + +Jerrold came back to it alone. + + + +XII + + +COLIN, JERROLD, AND ANNE + +i + +He went through the wide empty house, looking through all the rooms, +trying to find some memory of the happiness he had had there long ago. +The house was full of Anne. Anne's figure crossed the floors before him, +her head turned over her shoulder to see if he were coming; her voice +called to him from the doorways, her running feet sounded on the stairs. +That was her place at the table; that was the armchair she used to curl +up in; just there, on the landing, he had kissed her when he went to +school. + +They had given his mother's room to Maisie, and they had put his things +into the room beyond, his father's room. Everything was in its place as +it had been in his father's time, the great wardrobe, the white +marble-topped washstand, the bed he had died on. He saw him lying there +and Anne going to and fro between the washstand and the bed. The parrot +curtains hung from the windows, straight and still. + +Jerrold shuddered as he looked at these things. + +They had thought that he would want to sleep in that room because he was +married, because Maisie would have the room it led out of. + +But he couldn't sleep in it. He couldn't stay in it a minute; he would +never pass its door without that sickening pang of memory. He moved his +things across the gallery into Anne's room. + +He would sleep there; he would sleep in the white bed that Anne had +slept in. + +He told himself that he had to be near Colin; there was only the passage +between and their doors could stand open; that was why he wanted to +sleep there. But he knew that was not why. He wanted to sleep there +because there was no other room where he could feel Anne so near him, +where he could see her so clearly. When the dawn came she would be with +him, sitting in her chair by the window. The window looked to the west, +to Upper Speed and the Manor Farm house. The house was down there behind +the trees, and somewhere there, jutting out above the porch, was the +window of Anne's room. + +He looked at his watch. One o'clock. At two he would go and see Anne. + + +ii + +When Jerrold called at the Manor Farm house Anne was out. Old Ballinger +came slouching up from the farmyard to tell him that Miss Anne had gone +up to the Far Acres field to try the new tractor. + +The Far Acres field lay at the western end of the estate. Jerrold +followed her there. Five furrows, five bright brown bands on the sallow +stubble, marked out the Far Acres into five plots. In the turning space +at the top corner he saw Anne on her black horse and Colin standing +beside her. + +With a great clanking and clanging the new American, tractor struggled +towards them up the hill, dragging its plough. It stopped and turned at +the "headland" as Jerrold came up. + +A clear, light wind blew over the hill and he felt a sudden happiness +and excitement. He was beginning to take an interest in his land. He +shouted: + +"I say, Anne, you look like Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo." + +"Oh, not Waterloo, I hope. I'm going to win _my_ battle." + +"Well, Marengo--Austerlitz--whatever battles he did win. Does Curtis +understand that infernal thing?" + +Young Curtis, sulky and stolid on his driver's seat, stared at his new +master. + +"Yes. He's been taught motor mechanics. He's quite good at it ... If +only he'd do what you tell him. Curtis, I said you were not to use those +disc coulters for this field. I've had three smashed in two weeks. +They're no earthly good for stony soil." + +"Tis n' so bad 'ere as it is at the east end, miss." + +"Well, we'll see. You can let her go now." + +With a fearful grinding and clanking the tractor started. The revolving +disc coulter cut the earth; the three great shares gripped it and turned +it on one side. But the earth, instead of slanting off clear from the +furrows, fell back again. Anne dismounted and ran after the tractor and +stopped it. + +"He hasn't got his plough set right," she said. "It's too deep in." + +She stooped, and did something mysterious and efficient with a lever; +the wheels dipped, raising the shares to their right level, and the +tractor set off again. This time the earth parted clean from the furrows +with the noise of surge, and three slanting, glistening waves ran the +length of the field in the wake of the triple plough. + +"Oh, Jerrold, look at those three lovely furrows. Look at the pace it +goes. This field will be ploughed up in a day or two. Colin, aren't you +pleased?" + +The tractor was coming towards them, making a most horrible noise. + +"No," he said, "I don't like the row it makes. Can't I go, now I've seen +what the beastly thing can do?" + +"Yes. You'd better go if you can't stand it." + +Colin went with quick, desperate strides down the field away from the +terrifying sound of the tractor. + +They looked after him sorrowfully. + +"He's not right yet. I don't think he'll ever be able to stand noises." + +"You must give him time, Anne." + +"Time? He's had three years. It's heart-breaking. I must just keep him +out of the way of the tractors, that's all." + +She mounted her horse and went riding up and down the field, abreast of +the plough. + +Jerrold waited for her at the gate of the field. + + +iii + +It was Sunday evening between five and six. + +Anne was in the house, in the great Jacobean room on the first floor. +Barker had judged it too large and too dilapidated to live in, and it +had been left empty in his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold +had furnished it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor stretched along +the walls, for Jerrold had given Eliot half of their father's books. +This room would be too dilapidated to live in, and it had been left +empty in his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold had furnished +it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor stretched along the walls, for +Jerrold had given Eliot half of their father's books. This room would be +Eliot's library when he came down. It was now Anne's sitting-room. + +The leaded windows were thrown open to the grey evening and a drizzling +rain; but a fire blazed on the great hearth under the arch of the carved +stone chimney-piece. Anne's couch was drawn up before it. She lay +stretched out on it, tired with her week's work. + +She was all alone in the house. The gardener and his wife went out +together every Sunday to spend the evening with their families at +Medlicote or Wyck. She was not sorry when they were gone; the stillness +of the house rested her. But she missed Colin. Last Sunday he had been +there, sitting beside her in his chair by the hearth, reading. Today he +was with Jerrold at the Manor. The soft drizzle turned to a quick patter +of rain; a curtain of rain fell, covering the grey fields between the +farm and the Manor, cutting her off. + +She was listening to the rain when she heard the click of the gate and +feet on the garden path. They stopped on the flagstones under her +window. Jerrold's voice called up to her. + +"Anne--Anne, are you there? Can I come up?" + +"Rather." + +He came rushing up the stairs. He was in the room now. + +"How nice of you to come on this beastly evening." + +"That's why I came. I thought it would be so rotten for you all alone +down here." + +"What have you done with Colin?" + +"Left him up there. He was making no end of a row on the piano." + +"Oh Jerrold, if he's playing again he'll be all right." + +"He didn't sound as if there was much the matter with him." + +"You never can tell. He can't stand those tractors." + +"We must keep him away from the beastly things. I suppose we've got to +have 'em?" + +"I'm afraid so. They save no end of labour, and labour's short and +dear." + +"Is that why you've been working yourself to death?" + +"I haven't. Why, do I look dead?" + +"No. Eliot told me. He saw you at it." + +"I only take a hand at hay time and harvest. All the rest of the year +it's just riding about and seeing that other people work. And Colin does +half of that now." + +"All the same, I think it's about time you stopped." + +"But if I stop the whole thing'll stop. The men must have somebody over +them." + +"There's me." + +"You don't know anything about farming, Jerry dear. You don't know a teg +from a wether." + +"I suppose I can learn if Colin's learnt. Or I can get another Barker." + +"Not so easy. Don't you like my looking after your land, then? Aren't +you pleased with me? I haven't done so badly, you know. Seven hundred +acres." + +"You've been simply splendid. I shall never forget what you've done. And +I shall never forgive myself for letting you do it. I'd no idea what it +meant." + +"It's only meant that Colin's better and I've been happier than I ever +thought I could have been." + +"Happier? Weren't you happy then?" + +She didn't answer. They were on dangerous ground. If they began talking +about happiness-- + +"If I gave it up to-morrow," she said, "I should only go and work on +another farm." + +"Would you?" + +"Jerrold--do you want me to go?" + +"Want you?" + +"Yes. You did once. At least, you wanted to get away from _me_." + +"I didn't know what I was doing. If I had known I shouldn't have done +it. I can't talk about that, Anne. It doesn't bear thinking about." + +"No. But, Jerrold--tell me the truth. Do you want me to go because of +Colin?" + +"Colin?" + +"Yes. Because of what your mother told you?" + +"How do you know what she told me?" + +"She told Eliot." + +"And he told _you_? Good God! what was he thinking of?" + +"He thought it better for me to know it. It _was_ better." + +"How could it be?" + +"I can't tell you...Jerrold, it isn't true." + +"I know it isn't." + +"But you thought it was." + +"When did I think?" + +"Then; when you came to see me." + +"Did I?" + +"Yes. And you're not going to lie about it now." + +"Well, if I did I've paid for it." + +(What did he mean? Paid for it? It was she who had paid.) + +"When did you know it wasn't true?" she said. + +"Three months after, when Eliot wrote and told me. It was too late +then.... If only you'd told me at the time. Why didn't you?" + +"But I didn't know you thought it. How could I know?" + +"No. How could you? Who would have believed that things could have +happened so damnably as that?" + +"But it's all right now. Why did you say it was too late?" + +"Because it _was_ too late. I was married." + +"What _do_ you mean?" + +"I mean that I lied when I told you it made no difference. It made that +difference. If I hadn't thought that you and Colin were...if I hadn't +thought that, I wouldn't have married Maisie. I'd have married you." + +"Don't say that, Jerrold." + +"Well--you asked for the truth, and there it is." + +She got up and walked away from him to the window. He followed her +there. She spread out her hands to the cold rain. + +"It's raining still," she said. + +He caught back her hands. + +"Would you have married me?" + +"Don't, Jerrold, don't. It's cruel of you." + +He was holding her by her hands. + +"_Would_ you? Tell me. Tell me." + +"Let go my hands, then." + +He let them go. They turned back to the fireplace. Anne shivered. She +held herself to the warmth. + +"You haven't told me," he said. + +"No, I haven't told you," she repeated, stupidly. + +"That's because you _would_. That's because you love me. You do love +me." + +"I've always loved you." + +She spoke as if from some far-off place; as if the eternity of her love +removed her from him, put her beyond his reach. + +"But--what's the good of talking about it?" she said. + +"All the good in the world. We owed each other the truth. We know it +now; we know where we are. We needn't humbug ourselves and each other +any more. You see what comes of keeping back the truth. Look how we've +had to pay for it. You and me. Would you rather go on thinking I didn't +care for you?" + +"No, Jerrold, no. I'm only wondering what we're to do next." + +"Next?" + +"Yes. _That's_ why you want me to go away." + +"It isn't. It's why I want you to stay. I want you to leave off working +and do all the jolly things we used to do." + +"You mustn't make me leave off working. It's my only chance." + +They turned restlessly from the fireplace to the couch. They sat one at +each end of it, still for a long time, without speaking. The fire died +down. The evening darkened in the rain. The twilight came between them, +poignant and disquieting, dimming their faces, making them strange and +wonderful to each other. Their bodies loomed up through it, wonderful +and strange. The high white stone chimney-piece glimmered like an arch +into some inner place. + +Outside, from the church below the farm house, the bell tinkled for +service. + +It ceased. + +Suddenly they rose and he came towards her to take her in his arms. She +beat down his hands and hung on them, keeping him off. + +"Don't, Jerry, please, please don't hold me." + +"Oh Anne, let me. You let me once. Don't you remember?" + +"We can't now. We mustn't." + +And yet she knew that it would happen in some time, in some way. But not +now. Not like this. + +"We mustn't." + +"Don't you want me to take you in my arms?" + +"No. Not that." + +"What, then?" He pressed tighter. + +"I want you not to hurt Maisie." + +"It's too late to think of Maisie now." + +"I'm not thinking of her. I'm thinking of you. You'll hurt yourself +frightfully if you hurt her." She wrenched his hands apart and went from +him to the door. + +"What are you going to do?" he said. + +"I'm going to fetch the lamp." + +She left him standing there. + +A few minutes later she came back carrying the lighted lamp. He took it +from her and set it on the table. + +"And now?" + +"Now you're going back to Colin. And we're both going to be good...You +do want to be good--don't you?" + +"Yes. But I don't see how we're going to manage it." + +"We could manage it if we didn't see each other. If I went away." + +"Anne, you wouldn't. You can't mean that. I couldn't stand not seeing +you. You couldn't stand it, either." + +"I have stood it. I can stand it again." + +"You can't. Not now. It's all different. I swear I'll be decent. I won't +say another word if only you won't go." + +"I don't see how I can very well. There's the land... No. Colin must +look after that. I'll go when the ploughing's done. And some day you'll +be glad I went." + +"Go. Go. You'll find out then." + +Their tenderness was over. Something hard and defiant had come in to +them with the light. He was at the door now. + +"And you'll come back," he said. "You'll see you'll come back." + + + +XIII + + +ANNE AND JERROLD + +i + +When he was gone she turned on herself in fury. What had she done it +for? Why had she let him go? She didn't want to be good. She wanted +nothing in the world but Jerrold. + +She hadn't done it for Maisie. Maisie was nothing to her. A woman she +had never seen and didn't want to see. She knew nothing of her but her +name, and that was sweet and vague like a perfume coming from some place +unknown. She had no sweet image of Maisie in her mind. Maisie might +never have existed for all that Anne thought about her. + +What did she do it for, then? Why didn't she take him when he gave +himself? When she knew that in the end it must come to that? + +As far as she could see through her darkness it was because she knew +that Jerrold had not meant to give himself when he came to her. She had +driven him to it. She had made him betray his secret when she asked for +the truth. At that moment she was the stronger; she had him at a +disadvantage. She couldn't take him like that, through the sudden +movement of his weakness. Before she surrendered she must know first +whether Jerrold's passion for her was his weakness or his strength. +Jerrold didn't know yet. She must give him time to find out. + +But before all she had been afraid that if Jerrold hurt Maisie he would +hurt himself. She must know which was going to hurt him more, her +refusal or her surrender. If he wanted "to be good" she must go away and +give him his chance. + +And before the ploughing was all over she had gone. + +She went down into Essex, to see how her own farm was getting on. The +tenant who had the house wanted to buy it when his three years' lease +was up. Anne had decided that she would let him. The lease would be up +in June. Her agent advised her to sell what was left of the farm land +for building, which was what Anne had meant to do. She wanted to get rid +of the whole place and be free. All this had to be looked into. + +She had not been gone from Jerrold a week before the torture of +separation became unbearable. She had said that she could bear it +because she had borne it before, but, as Jerrold had pointed out to her, +it wasn't the same thing now. There was all the difference in the world +between Jerrold's going away from her because he didn't want her, and +her going away from Jerrold because he did. It was the difference +between putting up with a dull continuous pain you had to bear, and +enduring a sharp agony you could end at any minute. Before, she had only +given up what she couldn't get; now, she was giving up what she could +have to-morrow by simply going back to Wyck. + +She loathed the flat Essex country and the streets of little white rough +cast and red-tiled houses on the Ilford side where the clear fields had +once lain beyond the tall elm rows. She was haunted by the steep, +many-coloured pattern of the hills round Wyck, and the grey gables of +the Manor. Love-sickness and home-sickness tore at her together till her +heart felt as if it were stretched out to breaking point. + +She had only to go back and she would end this pain. Then on the sixth +day Jerrold's wire came: "Colin ill again. Please come back. Jerrold." + + +ii + +It was not her fault and it was not Jerrold's. The thing had been taken +out of their hands. She had not meant to go and Jerrold had not meant to +send for her. Colin must have made him. They had lost each other through +Colin and now it was Colin who had brought them together. + +Colin's terror had come again. Again he had the haunting fear of the +tremendous rushing noise, the crash always about to come that never +came. He slept in brief fits and woke screaming. + +Eliot had been down to see him and had gone. And again, as before, +nobody could do anything with him but Anne. + +"I couldn't," Jerrold said, "and Eliot couldn't. Eliot made me send for +you." + +They had left Colin upstairs and were together in the drawing-room. He +stood in the full wash of the sunlight that flooded in through the west +window. It showed his face drawn and haggard, and discoloured, as though +he had come through a long illness. His mouth was hard with pain. He +stared away from her with heavy, wounded eyes. She looked at him and was +frightened. + +"Jerrold, have you been ill?" + +"No. What makes you think so?" + +"You look ill. You look as if you hadn't slept for ages." + +"I haven't. I've been frightfully worried about Colin." + +"Have you any idea what set him off again?" + +"I believe it was those infernal tractors. He would go out with them +after you'd left. He said he'd have to, as long as you weren't there. +And he couldn't stand the row. Eliot said it would be that. And the +responsibility, the feeling that everything depended on him." + +"I see. I oughtn't to have left him." + +"It looks like it." + +"What else did Eliot say?" + +"Oh, he thinks perhaps he might be better at the Farm than up here. He +thinks it's bad for him sleeping in that room where he was frightened +when he was a kid. He says it all hooks on to that. What's more, he says +he may go on having these relapses for years. Any noise or strain or +excitement'll bring them on. Do you mind his being at the Farm again?" + +"Mind? Of course I don't. If I'm to look after him _and_ the land it'll +be very much easier there than here." + +For every night at Colin's bedtime Anne came up to the Manor. She slept +in the room that was to be Maisie's. When Colin screamed she went to him +and sat with him till he slept again. In the morning she went back to +the Farm. + +She had been doing this for a week now, and Colin was better. + +But he didn't want to go back. If, he said, Jerrold didn't mind having +him. + +Jerrold wanted to know why he didn't want to go back and Colin told him. + +"Hasn't it occurred to you that I've hurt Anne enough without beginning +all over again? All these damned people here think I'm her lover." + +"You can't help that. You're not the only one that's hurt her. We must +try and make it up to her, that's all." + +"How are we going to do it?" + +"My God! I don't know. I shall begin by cutting the swine who've cut +her." + +"That's no good. She doesn't care if they do cut her. She only cares +about us. She's done everything for us, and among us all we've done +nothing for her. Absolutely nothing. We can't give her anything. We +haven't got anything to give her that she wants." + +Jerrold was silent. + +Presently he said, "She wants Sutton's farm. Sutton's dying. I shall +give it to her when he's dead." + +"You think that'll make up?" + +"No, Colin, I don't. Supposing we don't talk about it any more." + +"All right. I say, when's Maisie coming home?" + +"God only knows. I don't." + +He wondered how much Colin knew. + + +iii + +February had gone. They were in the middle of March, and still Maisie +had not come back. + +She wrote sweet little letters to him saying she was sorry to be so long +away, but her mother wanted her to stay on another week. When Jerrold +wrote asking her to come back (he did this so that he might feel that he +had really played the game) she answered that they wouldn't let her go +till she was rested, and she wasn't quite rested yet. Jerrold mustn't +imagine she was the least bit ill, only rather tired after the winter's +racketing. It would be heavenly to see him again. + +Then when she was rested her mother got ill and she had to go with her +to Torquay. And at Torquay Maisie stayed on and on. + +And Jerrold didn't imagine she had been the least bit ill, or even very +tired, or that Lady Durham was ill. He preferred to think that Maisie +stayed away because she wanted to, because she cared about her people +more than she cared about him. The longer she stayed the more +obstinately he thought it. Here was he, trying to play the game, trying +to be decent and keep straight, and there was Maisie leaving him alone +with Anne and making it impossible for him. + +Anne had been back at the Farm a week and he had not been to see her. +But Maisie's last letter made him wonder whether, really, he need try +any more. He was ill and miserable. Why should he make himself ill and +miserable for a woman who didn't care whether he was ill and miserable +or not? Why shouldn't he go and see Anne? Maisie had left him to her. + +And on Sunday morning, suddenly, he went. + +There had been a sharp frost overnight. Every branch and twig, every +blade of grass, every crinkle in the road was edged with a white fur of +rime. It crackled under his feet. He drank down the cold, clean air like +water. His whole body felt cold and clean. He was aware of its strength +in the hard tension of his muscles as he walked. His own movement +exhilarated and excited him. He was going to see Anne. + +Anne was not in the house. He went through the yards looking for her. In +the stockyard he met her coming up from the sheepfold, carrying a young +lamb in her arms. She smiled at him as she came. + +She wore her farm dress, knee breeches and a thing like an old trench +coat, and looked superb. She went bareheaded. Her black hair was brushed +up from her forehead and down over her ears, the length of it rolled in +on itself in a curving mass at the back. Over it the frost had raised a +crisp web of hair that covered its solid smoothness like a net. Anne's +head was the head of a hunting Diana; it might have fitted into the +sickle moon. + +The lamb's queer knotted body was like a grey ligament between its hind +and fore quarters. It rested on Anne's arms, the long black legs +dangling. The black-faced, hammer-shaped head hung in the hollow of her +elbow. + +"This is Colin's job," she said. + +"What are you doing with it?" + +"Taking it indoors to nurse it. It's been frozen stiff, poor darling. Do +you mind looking in the barn and seeing if you can find some old sacks +there?" + +He looked, found the sacks and carried them, following her into the +kitchen. Anne fetched a piece of old blanket and wrapped the lamb up. +They made a bed of the sacks before the fire and laid it on it. She +warmed some milk, dipped her fingers in it and put them into the lamb's +mouth to see if it would suck. + +"I didn't know they'd do that," he said. + +"Oh, they'll suck anything. When you've had them a little time they'll +climb into your lap like puppies and suck the buttons on your coat. Its +mother's dead and we shall have to bring it up by hand." + +"I doubt if you will." + +"Oh yes, I shall save it. It can suck all right. You might tell Colin +about it. He looks after the sick lambs." + +She got up and stood looking down at the lamb tucked in its blanket, +while Jerrold looked at her. When she looked down Anne's face was +divinely tender, as if all the love in the world was in her heart. He +loved to agony that tender, downward-looking face. + +She raised her eyes and saw his fixed on her, heavy and wounded, and his +face strained and drawn with pain. And again she was frightened. + +"Jerrold, you _are_ ill. What is it?" + +"Don't. They'll hear us." He glanced at the open door. + +"They can't. He's in church and she's upstairs in the bedrooms." + +"Can't you leave that animal and come somewhere where we can talk?" + +"Come, then." + +He followed her out through the hall and into the small, oak-panelled +dining-room. They sat down there in chairs that faced each other on +either side of the fireplace. + +"What is it?" she repeated. "Have you got a pain?" + +"A beastly pain." + +"How long have you had it?" + +"Ever since you went away. I lied when I told you it was Colin. It +isn't." + +"What is it, then? Tell me. Tell me." + +"It's not seeing you. It's this insane life we're leading. It's making +me ill. You don't know what it's been like. And I can't keep my promise. +I--I love you too damnably." + +"Oh, Jerrold--does it hurt as much as that?" + +"You know how it hurts." + +"I don't want you to be hurt----But--darling--if you care for me like +that how could you marry Maisie?" + +"Because I cared for you. Because I was so mad about you that nothing +mattered. I thought I might as well marry her as not." + +"But if you didn't care for her?" + +"I did. I do, in a way. Maisie's awfully sweet. Besides, it wasn't that. +You see, I was going out to France, and I thought I was bound to be +killed. Nobody could go on having the luck I'd had. I wanted to be +killed." + +"So you were sure it would happen. You always thought things would +happen if you wanted them." + +"I was absolutely sure. I was never more sold in my life than when it +didn't. Even then I thought it would be all right till Eliot told me. +Then I knew that if I hadn't been in such a damned hurry I might have +married you." + +"Poor Maisie." + +"Poor Maisie. But she doesn't know. And if she did I don't think she'd +mind much. I married her because I thought she cared about me--and +because I thought I'd be killed before I could come back to her--But she +doesn't care a damn. So you needn't bother about Maisie. And you won't +go away again?" + +"I won't go away as long as you want me." + +"That's all right then." + +He looked at his watch. + +"I must be off. They'll be coming out of church. I don't want them to +see me here now because I'm coming back in the evening. We shall have to +be awfully careful how we see each other. I say--I _may_ come this +evening, mayn't I?" + +"Yes." + +"Same time as last Sunday? You'll be alone then?" + +"Yes." Her voice sounded as if it didn't belong to her. As if some other +person stronger than she, were answering for her. + +When he had gone she called after him. + +"Don't forget to tell Colin about the lamb." + +She went upstairs and slipped off her farm clothes and put on the +brown-silk frock she had worn when he last came to her. She looked in +the glass and was glad that she was beautiful. + + +iv + +She began to count the minutes and the hours till Jerrold came. Dinner +time passed. + +All afternoon she was restless and excited. She wandered from room to +room, as if she were looking for something she couldn't find. She went +to and fro between the dining-room and kitchen to see how the lamb was +getting on. Wrapped in its blanket, it lay asleep after its meal of +milk. Its body was warm to the touch and under its soft ribs she could +feel the beating of its heart. It would live. + +Two o'clock. She took up the novel she had been reading before Jerrold +had come and tried to get back into it. Ten minutes passed. She had read +through three pages without taking in a word. Her mind went back and +back to Jerrold, to the morning of today, to the evening of last Sunday, +going over and over the things they had said to each other; seeing +Jerrold again, with every movement, every gesture, the sudden shining +and darkening of his eyes, and his tense drawn look of pain. How she +must have hurt him! + +It was his looking at her like that, as if she had hurt him--Anne never +could hold out against other people's unhappiness. + +Half past two. + +She kicked off her shoes, put on her thick boots and her coat, and +walked two miles up the road towards Medlicote, for no reason but that +she couldn't sit still. It was not four o'clock when she got back. She +went into the kitchen and looked at the lamb again. + +She thought: Supposing Colin comes down to see it when Jerrold's here? +But he wouldn't come. Jerrold would take care of that. Or supposing the +Kimbers stayed in? They wouldn't. They never did. And if they did, why +not? Why shouldn't Jerrold come to see her? + +Four o'clock struck. She had the fire lit in the big upstairs +sitting-room. Tea was brought to her there. Mrs. Kimber glanced at her +where she lay back on the couch, her hands hanging loose in her lap. + +"You're tired after all your week's work, miss?" + +"A little." + +"And I dare say you miss Mr. Colin?" + +"Yes, I miss him very much." + +"No doubt he'll be coming down to see the lamb." + +"Oh yes; he'll want to see the lamb." + +"And you're sure you don't mind me and Kimber going out, miss?" + +"Not a bit. I like you to go." + +"It's a wonder to me," said Mrs. Kimber, "as you're not afraid to be +left alone in this 'ere house. But Kimber says, Miss Anne, she isn't +afraid of nothing. And I don't suppose you are, what with going out to +the war and all." + +"There's not much to be afraid of here." + +"That there isn't. Not unless 'tis people's nasty tongues." + +"_They_ don't frighten me, Mrs. Kimber." + +"No, miss. I should think not indeed. And no reason why they should." + +And Mrs. Kimber left her. + +A sound of pails clanking came from the yard. That was Minchin, the cow +man, going from the dairy to the cow sheds. Milking time, then. It must +be half past four. + +Five o'clock, the slamming of the front door, the click of the gate, and +the Kimbers' voices in the road below as they went towards Wyck. + +Anne was alone. + +Only half an hour and Jerrold would be with her. The beating of her +heart was her measure of time now. What would have happened before he +had gone again? She didn't know. She didn't try to know. It was enough +that she knew herself, and Jerrold; that she hadn't humbugged herself or +him, pretending that their passion was anything but what it was. She saw +it clearly in its reality. They couldn't go on as they were. In the end +something must happen. They were being drawn to each other, +irresistibly, inevitably, nearer and nearer, and Anne knew that a moment +would come when she would give herself to him. But that it would come +today or to-morrow or at any fore-appointed time she did not know. It +would come, if it came at all, when she was not looking for it. She had +no purpose in her, no will to make it come. + +She couldn't think. It was no use trying to. The thumping of her heart +beat down her thoughts. Her brain swam in a warm darkness. Every now and +then names drifted to her out of the darkness: Colin--Eliot--Maisie. + +Maisie. Only a name, a sound that haunted her always, like a vague, +sweet perfume from an unknown place. But it forced her to think. + +What about Maisie? It would have been awful to take Jerrold away from +Maisie, if she cared for him. But she wasn't taking him away. She +couldn't take away what Maisie had never had. And Maisie didn't care for +Jerrold; and if she didn't care she had no right to keep him. She had +nothing but her legal claim. + +Besides, what was done was done. The sin against Maisie had been +committed already in Jerrold's heart when it turned from her. Whatever +happened, or didn't happen, afterwards, nothing could undo that. And +Maisie wouldn't suffer. She wouldn't know. Her thoughts went out again +on the dark flood. She couldn't think any more. + +Half past five. + +She started up at the click of the gate. That was Jerrold. + + +v + +He came to her quickly and took her in his arms. And her brain was +swamped again with the warm, heavy darkness. She could feel nothing but +her pulses beating, beating against his, and the quick droning of the +blood in her ears. Her head was bent to his breast; he stooped and +kissed the nape of her neck, lightly, brushing the smooth, sweet, +roseleaf skin. They stood together, pressed close, closer, to each +other. He clasped his hands at the back of her head and drew it to him. +She leaned it hard against the clasping hands, tilting it so that she +saw his face, before it stooped again, closing down on hers. + +Their arms slackened; they came apart, drawing their hands slowly, +reluctantly, down from each other's shoulders. + +They sat down, she on her couch and he in Colin's chair. + +"Is Colin coming?" she said. + +"No, he isn't." + +"Well--the lamb's better." + +"I never told him about the lamb. I didn't want him to come." + +"Is he all right?" + +"I left him playing." + +The darkness had gone from her brain and the tumult from her senses. She +felt nothing but her heart straining towards him in an immense +tenderness that was half pity. + +"Are you thinking about Colin?" he said. + +"No. I'm not thinking about anything but you... _Now_ you know why I was +happy looking after Colin. Why I was happy working on the land. Because +he was your brother. Because it was your land. Because there wasn't +anything else I could do for you." + +"And I've done nothing for you. I've only hurt you horribly. I've +brought you nothing but trouble and danger." + +"I don't care." + +"No, but think. Anne darling, this is going to be a very risky business. +Are you sure you can go through with it? Are you sure you're not +afraid?" + +"I've never been much afraid of anything." + +"I ought to be afraid for you." + +"Don't. Don't be afraid. The more dangerous it is the better I shall +like it." + +"I don't know. It was bad enough in all conscience for you and Colin. +It'll be worse for us if we're found out. Of course we shan't be found +out, but there's always a risk. And it would be worse for you than for +me, Anne." + +"I don't care. I want it to be. Besides, it won't. It'll be far worse +for you because of Maisie. That's the only thing that makes it wrong." + +"Don't think about that, darling." + +"I don't. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care how wrong it is if it +makes you happy. And if God's going to punish either of us I hope it'll +be me." + +"God? The God doesn't exist who could punish _you_." + +"I don't care if he does punish me so long as you're let off." + +She came over to him and slid to the floor and crouched beside him and +laid her head against his knees. She clasped his knees tight with her +arms. + +"I don't want you to be hurt," she said. "I can't bear you to be hurt. +But what can I do?" + +"Stay like that. Close. Don't go." + +She stayed, pressing her face down tighter, rubbing her cheek against +his rough tweed. He put his arm round her shoulder, holding her there; +his fingers stroked, stroked the back of her neck, pushed up through the +fine roots of her hair, giving her the caress she loved. Her nerves +thrilled with a sudden secret bliss. + +"Jerrold, it's heaven when you touch me." + +"I know. It's hell for me when I don't." + +"I didn't know. I didn't know. If only I'd known." + +"We know now." + +There was a long silence. Now and again she felt him stirring uneasily. +Once he sighed and her heart tightened. At last he bent over her and +lifted her up and set her on his knee. She lay back gathered in his +arms, with her head on his breast, satisfied, like a child. + +"Jerrold, do you remember how you used to hold me to keep me from +falling in the goldfish pond?" + +"Yes." + +"I've loved you ever since then." + +"Do you remember how I kissed you when I went to school?" + +"Yes." + +"And the night that Nicky died?" + +"Yes." + +"I've been sleeping in that room, because it was yours." + +"Have you? Did you love me _then_, that night?" + +"Yes. But I didn't know I did. And then Father's death came and stopped +it." + +"I know. I know." + +"Anne, what a brute I was to you. Can you ever forgive me?" + +"I forgave you long ago." + +"Talk of punishments--" + +"Don't talk of punishments." + +Presently they left off talking, and he kissed her. He kissed her again +and again, with light kisses brushing her face for its sweetness, with +quick, hard kisses that hurt, with slow, deep kisses that stayed where +they fell; kisses remembered and unremembered, longed for, imagined and +unimaginable. + +The church bell began ringing for service, short notes first, tinkling +and tinkling; then a hurrying and scattering of sounds, sounds falling +together, running into each other, covering each other; one long +throbbing and clanging sound; and then hard, slow strokes, measuring out +the seconds like a clock. They waited till the bell ceased. + +The dusk gathered. It spread from the corners to the middle of the room. +The tall white arch of the chimney-piece jutted out through the dusk. + +Anne stirred slightly. + +"I say, how dark it's getting." + +"Yes. I like it. Don't get the lamp." + +They sat clinging together, waiting for the dark. + +The window panes were a black glimmer in the grey. He got up and drew +the curtains, shutting out the black glimmer of the panes. He came to +her and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch and laid her +on it. + +She shut her eyes and waited. + + + +XIV + + +MAISIE + +i + +He didn't know what he was going to do about Maisie. + +On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home. He had motored her up +from the station, and now the door of the drawing-room had closed on +them and they were alone together in there. + +"Oh, Jerrold--it _is_ nice--to see you--again." + +She panted a little, a way she had when she was excited. + +"Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on earth he was going to do +next. + +He had been all right on the station platform where their greetings had +been public and perfunctory, but now he would have to do something +intimate and, above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick. + +They looked at each other and he took again the impression she had +always given him of delicate beauty and sweetness. She was tall and her +neck bent slightly forward as she walked; this gave her the air of +bowing prettily, of offering you something with a charming grace. Her +shoulders and her hips had the same long, slenderly sloping curves. Her +hair was mole brown on the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way +that uncovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the thin bluish +whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue eyes looked larger than they were +because of their dark brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about +their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low and straight in +the bridge, then curved under, delicately acquiline, its nostrils were +close and clean cut. Her small, close upper lip had a flying droop; and +her chin curved slightly, ever so slightly, away to her throat. When she +talked Maisie's mouth and the tip of her nose kept up the same +sensitive, quivering play. But Maisie's eyes were still; they had no +sparkling speech; they listened, deeply attentive to the person who was +there. They took up the smile her mouth began and was too small to +finish. + +And now, as they looked at him, he felt that he ought to take her in his +arms, suddenly, at once. In another instant it would be too late, the +action would have lost the grace of spontaneous impulse. He wondered how +you simulated a spontaneous impulse. + +But Maisie made it all right for him. As he stood waiting for his +impulse she came to him and laid her hands on his shoulders and kissed +him, gently, on each cheek. Her hands slid down; they pressed hard +against his arms above the elbow, as if to keep back his too passionate +embrace. It was easy enough to return her kiss, to pass his arms under +hers and press her slight body, gently, with his cramped hands. Did she +know that his heart was not in it? + +No. She knew nothing. + +"What have you been doing with yourself?" she said. "You do look fit." + +"Do I? Oh, nothing much." + +He turned away from her sweet eyes that hurt him. + +At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and put cushions at her +back, and pour out her tea and wait on her. He tried by a number of +careful, deliberate attentions to make up for his utter lack of +spontaneity. And she sat there, drinking her tea, contented; pleased to +be back in her happy home; serenely unaware that anything was missing. + +He took her over the house and showed her her room, the long room with +the two south windows, one on each side of the square, cross-lighted bay +above the porch. It was full of the clear April light. + +Maisie looked round, taking it all in, the privet-white panels, the +lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of old rose damask. An armchair +and a round table with a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre +of the bay. + +"Is this mine, this heavenly room?" + +"I thought so." + +He was glad that he had something beautiful to give her, to make up. + +She glanced at the inner door leading to his father's room. "Is that +yours in there?" + +"Mine? No. That door's locked. It... I'm on the other side next to +Colin." + +"Show me." + +He took her into the gallery and showed her. + +"It's that door over there at the end." + +"What a long way off," she said. + +"Why? You're not afraid, are you?" + +"Dear me, no. Could anybody be afraid here?" + +"Poor Colin's pretty jumpy still. That's why I have to be near him." + +"I see." + +"You won't mind having him with us, will you?" + +"I shall love having him. Always. I hope he won't mind _me_." + +"He'll adore you, of course." + +"Now show me the garden." + +They went out on to the green terraces where the peacocks spread their +great tails of yew. Maisie loved the peacocks and the clipped yew walls +and the goldfish pond and the flower garden. + +He walked quickly, afraid to linger, afraid of having to talk to her. He +felt as if the least thing she said would be charged with some +unendurable emotion and that at any minute he might be called on to +respond. To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie; but, +everything having changed for him, he felt that at any minute Maisie +might begin to be unlike herself. + +She was out of breath. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't go so fast, +Jerry. I want to look and look." + +They went up on to the west terrace and stood there, looking. +Brown-crimson velvet wall-flowers grew in a thick hedge under the +terrace wall; their hot sweet smell came up to them. + +"It's too beautiful for words," she said. + +"I'm glad you like it. It is rather a jolly old place." + +"It's the most adorable place I've ever been in. It looks so good and +happy. As if everybody who ever lived in it had been good and happy." + +"I don't know about that. It was a hospital for four years. And it +hasn't quite recovered yet. It's all a bit worn and shabby, I'm afraid." + +"I don't care. I love its shabbiness. I don't want to forget what it's +been.... To think that I've missed seven weeks of it." + +"You haven't missed much. We've had beastly weather all March." + +"I've missed _you_. Seven weeks of you." + +"I think you'll get over that," he said, perversely. + +"I shan't. It's left a horrid empty space. But I couldn't help it. I +really couldn't, Jerry." + +"All right, Maisie, I'm sure you couldn't." + +"Torquay was simply horrible. And this is heaven. Oh, Jerry dear, I'm +going to be so awfully happy." + +He looked at her with a sudden tenderness of pity. She was visibly +happy. He remembered that her charm for him had been her habit of +enjoyment. And as he looked at her he saw nothing but sadness in her +happiness and in her sweetness and her beauty. But the sadness was not +in her, it was in his own soul. Women like Maisie were made for men to +be faithful to them. And he had not been faithful to her. She was made +for love and he had not loved her. She was nothing to him. Looking at +her he was filled with pity for the beauty and sweetness that were +nothing to him. And in that pity and that sadness he felt for the first +time the uneasy stirring of his soul. + +If only he could have broken the physical tie that had bound him to her +until now; if only they could give it all up and fall back on some +innocent, immaterial relationship that meant no unfaithfulness to Anne. + +When he thought of Anne he didn't know for the life of him how he was +going through with it. + + +ii + +Maisie had been talking to him for some seconds before he understood. At +last he saw that, for reasons which she was unable to make clear to him, +she was letting him off. He wouldn't have to go through with it. + +As Jerrold's mind never foresaw anything he didn't want to see, so in +this matter of Maisie he had had no plan. Not that he trusted to the +inspiration of the moment; in its very nature the moment wouldn't have +an inspiration. He had simply refused to think about it at all. It was +too unpleasant. But Maisie's presence forced the problem on him with +some violence. He had given himself to Anne without a scruple, but when +it came to giving himself to Maisie his conscience developed a sudden +sense of guiltiness. For Jerrold was essentially faithful; only his +fidelity was all for Anne. His marrying Maisie had been a sin against +Anne, its sinfulness disguised because he had had no pleasure in it. The +thought of going back to Maisie after Anne revolted him; the thought of +Anne having to share him with Maisie revolted him. Nobody, he said to +himself, was ever less polygamous than he. + +At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't want her to suffer, +and if she was not to suffer she must not know, and if she was not to +know they must go on as they had begun. He was haunted by the fear of +Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt for her was poignant +and accusing, as if somehow she did know and suffer. She must at least +be aware that something was wanting. He would have to make up to her +somehow for what she had missed; he would have to give her all the other +things she wanted for that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made +it easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his conviction that +Maisie was cold, that she was incapable of caring for him as Anne cared. +His peace of mind and the freedom of his conscience depended on this +belief. But, in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted children. He knew +that. + +According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would be an injury to +Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne would forgive him; she would +understand; she wouldn't want to hurt Maisie. + +So he went through with it. + +And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he was being let off. +He wouldn't have to go on. + +He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she lay there. She had +grasped his hands by the wrists, as if to hold back their possible +caress. And her little breathless voice went on, catching itself up and +tripping. + +"You won't mind--if I don't let you--come to me?" + +"I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that about it." + +"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's just my silly nerves. +I get frightened." + +"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother you." + +"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you wouldn't understand and +it would be too hard for you. _Will_ it?" + +"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly." + +He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing, +not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread, +mercifully and incredibly let off. + +But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate; it couldn't bear +to hurt him. She held him tighter. "Jerrold--if it _is_--if you can't +stand it, you mustn't mind about me. You must forget I ever said +anything. It's nothing but nerves." + +"I shall be all right. Don't worry." + +"You _are_ a darling." + +Her grasp slackened. "Please--please go. At once. Quick." + +As he went she put her hand to her heart. She could feel the pain +coming. It filled her with an indescribable dread. Every time it came +she thought she should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited; +excitement always brought it on. She held her breath tight to keep it +back. + +Ah, it had come. Splinters of glass, sharp splinters of glass, first +pricking, then piercing, then tearing her heart. Her heart closed down +on the splinters of glass, cutting itself at every beat. + +She looked under the pillow for the little silver box that held her +pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always had it with her, ready. She +crushed a pearl in her pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils. +The pain left her. She lay still. + + +iii + +And every Sunday at six in the evening, or nine (he varied the hour to +escape suspicion), Jerrold came to Anne. + +In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's happiness was +perfect, intense and secret like the bliss of a saint in ecstasy, of +genius contemplating its finished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she +had found reality. She gave herself without shame and without remorse, +or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran. Their passion was too clean +for fear or remorse or shame. She thought love was a finer thing going +free and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound. The game of love +should be played with a high, defiant courage; you were not fit to play +it if you fretted and cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an +extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never vowed or protested +or swore not to go back on it or on each other. It was inconceivable +that they should go back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she +saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold; there never had +been a time when she had ceased to love him. This moment when they +embraced was only the meeting point between what had been and what would +be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's conscience but the sense that +Jerrold didn't belong to her, that he had no right to love her; and she +had never had that sense. They had belonged to each other, always, from +the time when they were children playing together. Maisie was the +intruder, who had no right, who had taken what didn't belong to her. And +Anne could have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse of a +great passion; but Maisie didn't care. + +So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by thinking about Maisie. She +had never seen Jerrold's wife; she didn't want to see her. So long as +she didn't see her it was as if Maisie were not there. + +And yet she _was_ there. Next to Jerrold she was more there for Anne +than the people she saw every day. Maisie's presence made itself felt in +all the risks they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, but +to a continuous happiness. She was the reason why they could only meet +at intervals for one difficult and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie, +Jerrold, instead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard of +consequences, had to think out the least revolting ways by which they +might evade them. He had to set up some sort of screen for his Sunday +visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark +on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the +cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the +mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate +provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing +Anne. + +For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a +profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into +his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it, +so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the +land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He +determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate +himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew, +and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in +Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he +believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day +this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased +by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now +was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen; +his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his +companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other +was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He +rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in +all weathers. + +At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or +touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting +quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus +aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant +even than the moment of his passion. + +At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically, +that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers. +In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and +the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian +of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had +put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave +the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep +an eye on his brother and Anne Severn. + +Anne was not concerned with what they said. She felt that Jerrold and +she were safe so long as she didn't know Maisie. It never struck her +that Maisie would want to know _her_, since nobody else did. + + +iv + +But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that reason. One day she came +to Jerrold with the visiting cards. + +"The Corbetts and Hawtreys have called. Shall I like them?" + +"I don't know. _I_ won't have anything to do with them." + +"Why not?" + +"Because of the beastly way they've behaved to Anne Severn." + +"What have they done?" + +"Done? They've been perfect swine. They've cut her for five years +because she looked after Colin. They've said the filthiest things about +her." + +"What sort of things?" + +"Why, that Colin was her lover." + +"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was a saint." + +"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her. My mother left her all +by herself here to take care of him and she wouldn't leave him. She +thought of nothing but him." + +"She must be a perfect angel." + +"She is." + +"But about these horrible people--what do you want me to do?" + +"Do what you like." + +"_I_ don't want to know them. I'm thinking what would be best for Anne." + +"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she was _your_ friend." + +"But she _is_ if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I want her to be.... I +think I'd better call on these Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show +them how we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if they aren't +decent to her. It'll be far more telling than if I began by being +rude.... Only, Jerrold, how absurd--I don't know Anne. _She_ hasn't +called yet." + +"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know her." + +"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's the very reason. Why, +she's the only person here I do want to know. I think I fell in love +with the sound of her when you first told me about her and how she took +care of Colin. We must do everything we can to make up. We must have her +here a lot and give her a jolly time." + +He looked at her. + +"Maisie, you really _are_ rather a darling." + +"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be.... Shall I go and see her or +will you bring her?" + +"I think--perhaps--I'd better bring her, first." + +He spoke slowly, considering it. + +Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea, and in the evening he +would walk back with her. + +On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor Farm. He found Anne +upstairs in the big sitting-room. + +"Oh Jerrold, darling, I didn't think you'd come so soon." + +"Maisie sent me." + +"Maisie?" + +For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened. + +"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea." + +"But--it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see +how impossible it is?" + +"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you." + +"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold--do you think she guesses?" + +"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's +absolutely guileless." + +"That makes it worse." + +"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with +these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut _them_ if +they won't be decent to you." + +"Oh, worse and worse!" + +"You're afraid of her?" + +"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid." + +"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit +dangerous." + +"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told +me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well--I don't want to see how sweet +she is." + +"Her sweetness doesn't matter." + +"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the +same again." + +"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't, +can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth +you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This +isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?" + +"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we +could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't +bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music." + +"So would I. But we can't.... Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what +people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow----" + +"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us." + +"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all +right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't +you?" + +"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her." + +"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to." + +"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the +same thing, afterwards, ever." + +"I shall be the same, Anne. And you." + +"Me? I wonder." + +He rose, smiling down at her. + +"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late." + +She went. + + +v + +In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back +and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered. +Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between +the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift +their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers. + +"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all +much better than I do." + +"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived +here." + +Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive. + +"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?" + +"Yes. He was eight when I was five." + +"Do you remember what he was like?" + +"Yes." + +Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne +stopped dead she went on herself. + +"I wish _I_'d known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered +running about and playing with him.... You were Jerrold's friend, +weren't you?" + +"And Elliot's and Colin's." + +The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of +palpable truth. + +"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what +makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long +time. You see, he's told me things about you." + +"Has he?" + +Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie +would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie. + +"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are +heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last +tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly +splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've +looked after Jerry's land for him." + +"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my +job, anyway." + +"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I +believe you've saved Jerrold." + +"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving." + +"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't +care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found +his job for him." + +"He'd have found it himself all right without me." + +"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He +was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless. +We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd +want to live in London." + +"I don't think he'd ever do that." + +"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place." + +"I know. After his father's death." + +"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've +done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before. +It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think +how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now." + +"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going." + +Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear. + +"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon.... Will +you take them? I gathered them for you." + +"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath +choked her. + +Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said +good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home. + +"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?" + +"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse." + +He laughed. "Worse?" + +"I mean she was sweeter.... Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute. +Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows--" + +"She won't know." + +When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried. + +All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl +on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her. +Nothing would ever be the same again. + + + +XV + + +ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE + +i + +It was a Sunday in the middle of April. + +Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday and had brought Eliot +back with him for the week-end. Anne had come over as she always did on +a Sunday afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the terrace when +Eliot came to them, walking with the tired limp that Anne found piteous +and adorable. Very soon Maisie murmured some gentle, unintelligible +excuse, and left them. + +There was a moment of silence in which everything they had ever said to +each other was present to them, making all other speech unnecessary, as +if they held a long intimate conversation. Eliot sat very still, not +looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the passing of those +unuttered words. Then Anne spoke and her voice broke up his mood. + +"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?" + +"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for, the germ of trench +fever." + +"You mean _you_ have." + +"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't. A lot of us were out +for it." + +"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp out the disease, +doesn't it?" + +"Probably. In time." + +"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something big before you'd +finished." + +"My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing big about it but the +research, and we were all in that. All looking for the same thing. +Happening to spot it is just heaven's own luck." + +"But aren't you glad it was you?" + +"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm glad. It's the sort of +thing I wanted to do and it's rather more important than most things one +does." + +He said no more. Years ago, when he had done nothing, he had talked +excitedly and arrogantly about his work; now that he had done what he +had set out to do he was reserved, impassive and very humble. + +"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said. + +"Not yet. You're the first." + +"Dear Eliot, you _did_ know I'd be glad." + +"It's nice of you to care." + +Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he had that supreme +satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more. +Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He +would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice +over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science, +and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life +hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so +much if she had been there, calling back his thoughts, drawing his +passion to herself. + +"What are you going to do next?" she said. + +"Next I'm going off for a month's holiday. To Sicily--Taormina. I've +been overworking and I'm a bit run down. How about Colin?" + +"He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that relapse he had when I +was away in February." + +"You mean he got over it when you came back." + +"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just what I don't like about +him, Eliot. He's getting dependent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish +he could go away somewhere for a change. A long change. Away from me, +away from the farm, away from Wyck, somewhere where he hasn't been +before. It might cure him, mightn't it?" + +"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying." + +He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going to say. She said it. + +"Eliot--do you think you could take him with you? Could you stand the +strain?" + +"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be able to stand it for +a month." + +"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a bit of trouble when +he's well. He's adorable. Only--perhaps--if you're run down you oughtn't +to." + +"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you say he ought to get +away from you, and I wanted you to come too." + +"Me?" + +"You and Maisie and Jerrold." + +"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm." + +"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that. Don't you ever get +away?" + +"Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all three be away at +once. But it's awfully nice of you to think of it." + +"I didn't. It was Maisie." + +Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and Maisie's sweetness and +kindness, breaking her down? + +"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go." + +"Why should she be?" + +"Because she wants you to." + +"Maisie?" + +"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?" + +"I was afraid she was beginning to--" + +"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like _her_?" + +"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by +loving her." + +"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do." + +"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know.... Here she is." + +Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting +grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and +breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and +limped away from them. + +"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said. + +"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you----" + +"You're coming, aren't you?" + +"I'm afraid I can't." + +"Why ever not?" + +"I can't leave the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold and Colin aren't +here." + +"Oh, bother the old land! You _must_ leave it. It can get on without you +for a month or two. Nothing much can happen in that time." + +"Oh, can't it! Things can happen in a day if you aren't there to see +that they don't." + +"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But he'll mind awfully if you +don't come. So shall I. Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back +with Eliot in time for the hay harvest, and you and I and Colin are to +go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and mother are joining us at Como +in June. We shall be there a month and come home through Switzerland." + +"It would be heavenly, but I can't do it. I can't, really, Maisie." She +was thinking: He'll be back for the hay harvest. + +"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our pleasure like that. +Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. _And_ mine. I never dreamed of your +not coming." + +"Do you mean you really want me?" + +"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at +all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do +it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the +Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come." + +"Maisie--why are you such an angel to me?" + +"I'm not. I want you to come because--oh _because_ I want you. Because I +like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say +you care more for the land than Jerrold and me." + +"I don't. I--It isn't the land altogether. It's Colin. I want him to get +away from me for a time and do without me. It's frightfully important +that he should get away." + +"We could send Colin to another part of the island with Eliot. Only that +wouldn't be very kind to Eliot." + +"No. It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere when you've come back." + +"But that's no good to _us_. Jerrold will be here for the haying, if +you're thinking of that." + +"I'm not thinking of that. I'm thinking of Colin." + +As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lying to Maisie. Lying for +the first time. That came of knowing Maisie; it came of Maisie's +sweetness. She would have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin +now; she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the hay harvest and +Maisie went on with Colin to the Italian Lakes, she would have her lover +to herself; they would be alone together all June. She would lie in his +arms, not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night after +night, from long before midnight till the dawn. + +For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne and Colin had slept out +of doors in wooden shelters set up in the Manor fields, away from the +noises of the farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from +Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's shelter had been +moved up from the field to the Manor garden. In the summer Anne would +sleep again in her shelter. The path to her field from the Manor garden +lay through three pastures and two strips of fir plantation with a green +drive between. + +Jerrold would come to her there. He would have his bed in Colin's +shelter in the garden, and when the night was quiet he would get up and +go down the Manor fields and through the fir plantation to her shelter +at the bottom. They would lie there in each other's arms, utterly safe, +hidden from passing feet and listening ears, and eyes that watched +behind window panes. + +And as she thought of his coming to her, and heard her own voice lying +to Maisie, the blood mounted to her face, flooding it to the roots of +her hair. + +"I'm thinking of Colin." + +Her voice kept on sounding loud and dreadful in her brain, while +Maisie's voice floated across it, faint, as if it came from somewhere a +long way off. + +"You never think of yourself. You're too good for anything, Anne." + +She would never be safe from Maisie and Maisie's innocence that accused, +reproached and threatened her. Maisie's sweetness went through her like +a thrusting sword, like a sharp poison; it had words that cut deeper +than threats, reproaches, accusations. Before she had seen Maisie she +had been fearless, pitiless, remorseless; now, because of Maisie, she +would never be safe from remorse and pity and fear. + +She recovered. She told herself that she hadn't lied; that she _had_ +been thinking of Colin; that she had thought of him first; that she had +refused to go to Taormina before she knew that Jerrold was coming back +for the hay harvest. She couldn't help it if she knew that now. It was +not as if she had schemed for it or counted on it. She had never for one +moment counted on anything or schemed. And still, as she thought of +Jerrold, her heart tightened on the sharp sword-thrust of remorse. + +Because of Maisie, nothing would ever be the same again. + + +ii + +In the last week of April they had gone, Jerrold and Maisie, Eliot and +Colin, to Taormina. In the last week in May Jerrold and Eliot took +Maisie up to Como on their way home. They found Sir Charles and Lady +Durham there waiting for her. They had left Colin by himself at +Taormina. + +From the first moment of landing Colin had fallen in love with Sicily +and refused to be taken away from it. He was aware that his recovery was +now in his own hands, and that he would not be free from his malady so +long as he was afraid to be alone. He had got to break himself of his +habit of dependence on other people. And here in Taormina he had come +upon the place that he could bear to be alone in. There was freedom in +his surrender to its enchantment and in the contemplation of its beauty +there was peace. And with peace and freedom he had found his +indestructible self; he had come to the end of its long injury. + +One day, sitting out on the balcony of his hotel, he wrote to Anne. + +"Don't imagine because I've got well here away from you that it wasn't +you who made me well. In the first place, I should never have gone away +if you hadn't made me go. You knew what you were about when you sent me +here. I know now what Jerrold meant when he wanted to get away by +himself after Father died. He said he wanted to grow a new memory. Well, +that's what I've done here. + +"It seemed to happen all at once. One day I'd left them all and gone out +for a walk by myself. It came over me that between me and being well, +perfectly well, there was nothing but myself, that I was really hanging +on to my illness for some sort of protection that it gave me, just as +I'd hung on to you. I'd been thinking about it all the time, filling my +mind with my illness, hanging on to the very fear of it; to save myself, +I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself. And suddenly, out +there, I let go. And the beauty of the place got me. I can't describe +the beauty, except that there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, +a clear gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming over +everything like gold water. I seemed to remember it as if I'd been here +before, a long, steady memory, not just a flash. It was like finding +something you'd lost, or when a musical phrase you've been looking for +suddenly comes back to you. It was the most utter, indescribable peace +and satisfaction. And somehow this time joined on to the times at Wyck +when we were all there and happy together; and the beastly time in +between slipped through. It just dropped out, as if it had never +happened, and I got a sense of having done with it forever. I can't tell +you what it was like. But I think it means I'm well. + +"And then, on the top of it all, I remembered you, Anne, and all your +goodness and sweetness. I got right away from my beastly self and saw +you as you are. And I knew what you'd done for me. I don't believe I +ever knew, really _knew_, before. I had to be alone with myself before I +could see it, just as I always had to be alone with my music before I +could get it right. I've never thanked you properly. I can't thank you. +There aren't any words to do it in. And I only know now what it's cost +you...." + +Did he know? Did he know that it had once cost her Jerrold? + +"... For instance, I know you gave up coming here with us because you +thought it would be better for me without you." + +Colin, too, turning it in her heart, the sharp blade of remorse. Would +they never have done punishing her? + +And then: "Maisie knows what you are. She told Eliot you were the most +beautiful thing, morally, she had ever known. The one person, she said, +whose motives would always be clean." + +If he had tried he couldn't have hit on anything that would have hurt +her so. It was more than she could bear to be punished like this through +the innocence of innocent people, through their kindness and affection, +their belief, their incorruptible trust in her. There was nothing in the +world she dreaded more than Maisie's trust. It was as if she foresaw +what it would do to her, how at any minute it would beat her, it would +break her down. + +But she was not beaten yet, not broken down. After every fit of remorse +her passion asserted itself again in a superb recovery. Her motives +might not be so spotless as they looked to Maisie, but her passion +itself was clean as fire. Nothing, not even Maisie's innocence, Maisie's +trust in her, could make her go back on it. Hard, wounding tears cut +through her eyelids as she thought of Maisie, but she brushed them away +and began counting the days till Jerrold should come back. + + +iii + +He came back the first week in June, in time for the hay harvest. And it +happened as she had foreseen. + +It would have been dangerous for Jerrold to have left the house at night +to go to the Manor Farm. At any moment he might have been betrayed by +his own footsteps treading the passages and stairs, by the slipping of +locks and bolts, the sound of the opening and shutting of doors. The +servants might be awake and hear him; they might go to his room and find +that he was not there. + +But Colin's shelter stood in a recess on the lawn, open to the fields +and hidden from the house by tall hedges of yew. Nobody could see him +slip out into the moonlight or the darkness; nobody could hear the soft +padding of his feet on the grass. He had only to run down the three +fields and cross the belt of firs to come to Anne's shelter at the +bottom. The blank, projecting wall of the mill hid it from the cottages +and the Manor Farm house; the firs hid it from the field path; a high +bank, topped by a stone wall, hid it from the road and Sutton's Farm. +Its three wooden walls held them safe. + +Night after night, between eleven and midnight, he came to her. Night +after night, she lay awake waiting till the light rustling of the meadow +grass told her he was there: on moonlit nights a quick brushing sound; +in the thick blackness a sound like a slow shearing as he felt his way. +The moon would show him clear, as he stood in the open frame of the +shelter, looking in at her; or she would see him grey, twilit and +mysterious; or looming, darker than dark, on black nights without moon +or stars. + +They loved the clear nights when their bodies showed to each other white +under the white moon; they loved the dark nights that brought them +close, shutting them in, annihilating every sensation but that of his +tense, hard muscles pressing down, of her body crushed and yielding, +tightening and slackening in surrender; of their brains swimming in +their dark ecstasy. + +They loved the warmth of each other's bodies in the hot windless nights; +they loved their smooth, clean coolness washed by the night wind. +Nothing, not even the sweet, haunting ghost of Maisie, came between. +They would fall asleep in each other's arms and lie there till dawn, +till Anne woke in a sudden fright. Always she had this fear that some +day they would sleep on into the morning, when the farm people would be +up and about. Jerrold lay still, tired out with satisfaction, sunk under +all the floors of sleep. She had to drag him up, with kisses first and +light stroking, then with a strong undoing of their embrace, pushing +back his heavy arms that fell again to her breast as she parted them. +Then she would wrench herself loose and shake him by the shoulders till +she woke him. He woke clean, with no ugly turning and yawning, but with +a great stretching of his strong body and a short, sudden laugh, the +laugh he had for danger. Then he would look at his wrist watch and show +it her, laughing again as she saw that this time, again, they were safe. +And they would lie a little while longer, looking into each other's +faces for the sheer joy of looking, reckless with impunity. And he would +start up suddenly with, "I say, Anne, I must clear out or we shall be +caught." And they would get up. + +Outside, the world looked young and unknown in the June dawn, in the +still, clear, gold-crystal air, where green leaves and green grass shone +with a strange, hard lustre like fresh paint, and yet unearthly, +uncreated, fixed in their own space and time. + +And she would go with him, her naked feet shining white on the queer, +bright, cold green of the grass, up the field to the belt of firs that +stood up, strange and eternal, under the risen sun. + +They parted there, holding each other for a last kiss, a last clinging, +as if never in this world they would meet again. + +Dawn after dawn. They belonged to the dawn and the dawn light; the dawn +was their day; they knew it as they knew no other time. + +And Anne would go back to her shelter, and lie there, and live through +their passion again in memory, till she fell asleep. + +And when she woke she would find the sweet, sad ghost of Maisie haunting +her, coming between her and the memory of her dark ecstasy. Maisie, +utterly innocent, utterly good, trusting her, sending Jerrold back to +her because she trusted her. Only to think of Maisie gave her a fearful +sense of insecurity. She thought: If I'd loved her I could never have +done it. If I were to love her even now that would end it. We couldn't +go on. She prayed God that she might not love her. + +By day the hard work of the farm stopped her thinking. And the next +night and the next dawn brought back her safety. + + +iv + +The hay harvest was over by the last week of June, and in the first week +of July Maisie had come back. + +Maisie or no Maisie, the work of the farm had to go on; and Anne felt +more than ever that it justified her. When the day of reckoning came, if +it ever did come, let her be judged by her work. Because of her love for +Jerrold here was this big estate held together, and kept going; because +of his love for her here was Jerrold, growing into a perfect farmer and +a perfect landlord; because of her he had found the one thing he was +best fitted to do; because of him she herself was valuable. Anne brought +to her work on the land a thoroughness that aimed continually at +perfection. She watched the starting of every tractor-plough and driller +as it broke fresh ground, to see that machines and men were working at +their highest pitch of efficiency. She demanded efficiency, and, on the +whole, she got it; she gave it by a sort of contagion. She wrung out of +the land the very utmost it was capable of yielding; she saw that there +was no waste of straw or hay, of grain or fertilizers; and she knew how +to take risks, spending big sums on implements and stock wherever she +saw a good chance of a return. + +Jerrold learned from her this perfection. Her work stood clear for the +whole countryside to see. Nobody could say she had not done well by the +land. When she first took on the Manor Farm it had stood only in the +second class; in four years she had raised it to the first. It was now +one of the best cultivated estates in the county and famous for its +prize stock. Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, +and Major Markham of Wyck Wold owned to an admiration for Anne Severn's +management. Her morals, they said, might be a trifle shady, but her +farming was above reproach. More reluctantly they admitted that she had +made something of that young rotter, Colin, even while they supposed +that he had been sent abroad to keep him out of Anne Severn's way. They +also supposed that as soon as he could do it decently Jerrold would get +rid of Anne. + +Then two things happened. In July Maisie Fielding came back and was seen +driving about the country with Anne Severn; and in the same month old +Sutton died and the Barrow Farm was let to Anne, thus establishing her +permanence. + +Anne had refused to take it from Jerrold as his gift. He had pressed her +persistently. + +"You might, Anne. It's the only thing I can give you. And what is it? A +scrubby two hundred acres." + +"It's a thundering lot of land, Jerrold. I can't take it." + +"You must. It isn't enough, after all you've done for us. I'd like to +give you everything I've got; Wyck Manor and the whole blessed estate to +the last turnip, and every cow and pig. But I can't do that. And you +used to say you wanted the Barrow Farm." + +"I wanted to rent it, Jerry darling. I can't let you give it me." + +"Why not? I think it's simply beastly of you not to." + +At that point Maisie had passed through the room with her flowers and he +had called to her to help him. + +"What are you two quarrelling about?" she said. + +"Why, I want to give her the Barrow Farm and she won't let me." + +"Of course I won't let him. A whole farm. How could I?" + +"I think you might, Anne. It would please him no end." + +"She thinks," Jerrold said, "she can go on doing things for us, but we +mustn't do anything for her. And I say it's beastly of her." + +"It is really, Anne darling. It's selfish. He wants to give it you so +awfully. He won't be happy if you won't take it." + +"But a farm, a whole thumping farm. It's a big house and two hundred +acres. How can I take a thing like that? You couldn't yourself if you +were me." + +Maisie's little white fingers flickered over the blue delphiniums +stacked in the blue-and-white Chinese jar. Her mauve-blue eyes were +smiling at Anne over the tops of the tall blue spires. + +"Don't you want to make him happy?" she said. + +"Not that way." + +"If it's the only way--?" + +She passed out of the room, still smiling, to gather more flowers. They +looked at each other. + +"Jerrold, I can't stand it when she says things like that." + +"No more can I. But you know, she really does want you to take that +farm." + +"Don't you see why I can't take it--from _you_? It's because we're +lovers." + +"I should have thought that made it easier." + +"It makes it impossible. I've _given_ myself to you. I can't take +anything. Besides, it would look as if I'd taken it for that." + +"That's an appalling idea, Anne." + +"It is. But it's what everybody'll think. They'll wonder what on earth +you did it for. We don't want people wondering about us. If they once +begin wondering they'll end by finding out." + +"I see. Perhaps you're right. I'm sorry." + +"It sticks out of us enough as it is. I can't think how Maisie doesn't +see it. But she never will. She'll never believe that we--" + +"Do you want her to see it?" + +"No, but it hurts so, her not seeing.... Jerrold, I believe that's the +punishment--Maisie's trusting us. It's the worst thing she could have +done to us." + +"Then, if we're punished we're quits. Don't think of it, Anne darling. +Don't let Maisie come in between us like that." + +He took her in his arms and kissed her, close and quick, so that no +thought could come between. + +But Maisie's sweetness had not done its worst. She had yet to prove what +she was and what she could do. + + +v + +July passed and August; the harvest was over. And in September Jerrold +went up to London to stay with Eliot for the week-end, and Anne stayed +with Maisie, because Maisie didn't like being left in the big house by +herself. Through all those weeks that was the way Maisie had her, +through her need of her. + +And on the Thursday before Anne came Maisie had called on Mrs. Hawtrey +of Medlicote, and Mrs. Hawtrey had asked her to lunch with her on the +following Monday. Maisie said she was afraid she couldn't lunch on +Monday because Anne Severn would be with her, and Mrs. Hawtrey said she +was very sorry, but she was afraid she couldn't ask Anne Severn. + +And Maisie enquired in her tender voice, "Why not?" + +And Mrs. Hawtrey replied, "Because, my dear, nobody here does ask Anne +Severn." + +Maisie said again, "Why not?" + +Then Mrs. Hawtrey said she didn't want to go into it, the whole thing +was so unpleasant, but nobody _did_ call on Anne Severn. She was too +well known. + +And at that Maisie rose in her fragile dignity and said that nobody knew +Anne Severn so well as she and her husband did, and that there was +nobody in the world so absolutely _good_ as Anne, and that she couldn't +possibly know anybody who refused to know her, and so left Mrs. Hawtrey. + +The evening Jerrold came home, Maisie, flushed with pleasure, +entertained him with a report of the encounter. + +"So you've given an ultimatum to the county." + +"Yes. I told you I'd cut them all if they went on cutting Anne. And now +they know it." + +"That means that you won't know anybody, Maisie. Except for Anne and me +you'll be absolutely alone here." + +"I don't care. I don't want anybody but you and Anne. And if I do we can +ask somebody down. There are lots of amusing people who'd come. And +Eliot can bring his scientific crowd. It simply means that Corbetts and +Hawtreys won't be asked to meet them, that's all." + +She went upstairs to lie down before dinner, and presently Anne came to +him in the drawing-room. She was dressed in her riding coat and breeches +as she had come off the land. + +"What do you think Maisie's done now?" he said. + +"I don't know. Something that'll make me feel awful, I suppose." + +"If you're going to take it like that I won't tell you." + +"Yes. Tell me. Tell me. I'd rather know." + +He told her as Maisie had told him. + +"Can't you see her, standing up to the whole county? Pounding them with +her little hands." + +His vision of the gentle thing, rising up in that sudden sacred fury of +protection, moved him to admiring, tender laughter. It made Anne burst +into tears. + +"Oh, Jerrold, that's the worst that's happened yet. Everybody'll cut +her, because of me." + +"Bless you, she won't care. She says she doesn't care about anybody but +you and me." + +"But that's the awful thing, her caring. That's the punishment. The +punishment." + +Again he took her in his arms and comforted her. + +"What am I to do, Jerry? What am I to _do?_" + +"Go to her," he said, "and say something nice." + +"Go to her and take my punishment?" + +"Well, yes, darling, I'm afraid you've got to take it. We can't have it +both ways. It wouldn't _be_ a punishment if you weren't so sweet, if you +didn't mind so. I wish to God I'd never told you." + +She held her head high. + +"I made you. I'm glad you told me." + +She went up to Maisie in her room. Maisie had dressed for dinner and lay +on her couch, looking exquisite and fragile in a gown of thick white +lace. She gave a little soft cry as Anne came to her. + +"Anne, you've been crying. What is it, darling?" + +"Nothing. Only Jerrold told me what you'd done." + +"Done?" + +"Yes, for me. Why did you do it, Maisie?" + +"Why? I suppose it was because I love you. It was the least I could do." + +She held out her hands to her. Anne knelt down, crouching on the floor +beside her, with her face hidden against Maisie's body. Maisie put her +arm round her. + +"But why are you crying about it, Anne? You never cry. I can't bear it. +It's like seeing Jerrold cry." + +"It's because you're so good, so good, and I'm such a brute. You don't +know what a brute I am." + +"Oh yes, I know." + +"Do you?" she said, sharply. For one moment she thought that Maisie did +indeed know, know and understand so perfectly that she forgave. This was +forgiveness. + +"Of course I do. And so does Jerrold. _He_ knows what a brute you are." + +It was not forgiveness. It was Maisie's innocence again, her trust--the +punishment. Anne knelt there and took the pain of it. + + +vi + +She lay awake, alone in her shelter. She had given the excuse of a +racking headache to keep Jerrold from coming to her. For that she had +had to lie. But what was her whole existence but a lie? A lie told by +her silence under Maisie's trust in her, by her acceptance of Maisie's +friendship, by her acquiescence in Maisie's preposterous belief. Every +minute that she let Maisie go on loving and trusting and believing in +her she lied. And the appalling thing was that she couldn't be alone in +her lying. So long as Maisie trusted him Jerrold lied, too--Jerrold, who +was truth itself. One moment she thought: That's what I've brought him +to. That's how I've dragged him down. The next she saw that reproach as +the very madness of her conscience. She had not dragged Jerrold down; +she had raised him to his highest intensity of loving, she had brought +him, out of the illusion of his life with Maisie, to reality and kept +him there in an immaculate faithfulness. Not even for one insane moment +did Anne admit that there was anything wrong or shameful in their +passion itself. It was Maisie's innocence that made them liars, Maisie's +goodness that put them in the wrong and brought shame on them, her truth +that falsified them. + +No woman less exquisite in goodness could have moved her to this +incredible remorse. It took the whole of Maisie, in her unique +perfection, to beat her and break her down. Her first instinct in +refusing to know Maisie had been profoundly right. It was as if she had +foreseen, even then, that knowing Maisie would mean loving her, and +that, loving her, she would be beaten and broken down. The awful thing +was that she did love Maisie; and she couldn't tell which was the worse +to bear, her love for Maisie or Maisie's love for her. And who could +have foreseen the pain of it? When she prayed that she might take the +whole punishment, she had not reckoned on this refinement and precision +of torture. God knew what he was about. With all his resources he +couldn't have hit on anything more delicately calculated to hurt. +Nothing less subtle would have touched her. Not discovery; not the +grossness of exposure; but this intolerable security. What could +discovery and exposure do but set her free in her reality? Anne would +have rejoiced to see her lie go up in one purifying flame of revelation. +But to go safe in her lie, hiding her reality, and yet defenceless under +the sting of Maisie's loving, was more than she could bear. She had +brought all her truth and all her fineness to this passion which +Maisie's innocence made a sin, and she was punished where she had +sinned, wounded by the subtle God in her fineness and her truth. If only +Jerrold could have escaped, but he was vulnerable, too; there was +fineness and truth in him. To suffer really he had to be wounded in his +soul. + +If Jerrold was hurt then they must end it. + +As yet he had given no sign of feeling; but that was like him. Up to the +last minute he would fight against feeling, and when it came he would +refuse to own that he suffered, that there was any cause for suffering. +It would be like the time when his father was dying, when he refused to +see that he was dying. So he would refuse to see Maisie and then, all at +once, he would see her and he would be beaten and broken down. + + +vii + +And suddenly he did see her. + +It was on the first Sunday after Jerrold's return. Maisie had had +another of her heart attacks, by herself, in her bed, the night before; +and she had been lying down all day. The sun had come round on to the +terrace, and she now rested there, wrapped in a fur coat and leaning +back on her cushions in the garden chair. + +They were sitting out there, all three, Jerrold and Anne talking +together, and Maisie listening with her sweet, attentive eyes. Suddenly +she shut her eyes and ceased to listen. Jerrold and Anne went on talking +with hushed voices, and in a little while Maisie was asleep. + +Her head, rising out of the brown fur, was tilted back on the cushions, +showing her innocent white throat; her white violet eyelids were shut +down on her eyes, the dark lashes lying still; her mouth, utterly +innocent, was half open; her breath came through it unevenly, in light +jerks. + +"She's asleep, Jerrold." + +They sat still, making no sound. + +And as she looked at Maisie sleeping, tears came again into Anne's eyes, +the hard tears that cut her eyelids and spilled themselves, drop by slow +drop, heavily. She tried to wipe them away secretly with her hand before +Jerrold saw them; but they came again and again and he had seen. He had +risen to his feet as if he would go, then checked himself and stood +beside her; and together they looked on at Maisie's sleeping; they felt +together the infinite anguish, the infinite pathos of her goodness and +her trust. The beauty of her spirit lay bare to them in the white, +tilted face, slackened and smoothed with sleep. Sleep showed them her +innocence again, naked and helpless. They saw her in her poignant being, +her intense reality. She was so real that in that moment nothing else +mattered to them. + +Anne set her teeth hard to keep her mouth still. She saw Jerrold glance +at her, she heard him give a soft groan of pity or of pain; then he +moved away from them and stood by the terrace wall with his back to her. +She saw his clenched hands, and through his terrible, tense quietness +she knew by the quivering of his shoulders that his breast heaved. Then +she saw him grasp the terrace wall and grind the edge of it into the +palms of his hands. That was how he had stood by his father's deathbed, +gripping the foot-rail; and when presently he turned and came to her she +saw the look on his face she had seen then, of young, blind agony, +sharpened now with some more piercing spiritual pain. + +"Come," he said, "come into the house." + +They went together, side by side, as they had gone when they were +children, along the terrace and down the steps into the drive. In the +shelter of the hall she gave way and cried, openly and helplessly, like +a child, and he put his arm round her and led her into the library, away +from the place where Maisie was. They sat together on the couch, holding +each other's hands, clinging together in their suffering, their memory +of what Maisie had made their sin. Even so they had sat in Anne's room, +on the edge of Anne's bed, when they were children, holding each other's +hands, miserable and yet glad because they were brought together, +because what they had done and what they had borne they had done and +borne together. And now as then he comforted her. + +"Don't cry, Anne darling; it isn't your fault. I made you." + +"You didn't. You didn't. I wanted you and I made you come to me. And I +knew what it would be like and you didn't." + +"Nobody could have known. Don't go back on it." + +"I'm not going back on it. If only I'd never seen Maisie--then I +wouldn't have cared. We could have gone on." + +"Do you mean we can't now?" + +"Yes. How can we when she's such an angel to us and trusts us so?" + +"It does make it pretty beastly," he said. + +"It makes me feel absolutely rotten." + +"So it does me, when I think about it." + +"It's knowing her, Jerry. It's having to love her, and knowing that she +loves me; it's knowing what she is.... Why did you make me see her?" + +"You know why." + +"Yes. Because it made it safer. That's the beastliness of it. I knew how +it would be. I knew she'd beat us in the end--with her goodness." + +"Darling, it _isn't_ your fault." + +"It _is_. It's all my fault. I'm not going back on it. I'd do it again +to-morrow if it weren't for Maisie. Even now I don't know whether it's +right or wrong. I only know it's the most real and valuable part of me +that loves you, and it's the most real and valuable part of you that +loves me; and I feel somehow that that makes it right. I'd go on with it +if it made you happy. But you aren't happy now." + +"I'm not happy because you're not. I don't mind for myself so much. Only +I hate the beastly way we've got to do it. Covering it all up and +pretending that we're not lovers. Deceiving her. That's what makes it +all wrong. Hiding it." + +"I know. And I made you do that." + +"You didn't. We did it for Maisie. Anyhow, we must stop it. We can't go +on like this any more. We must simply tell her." + +"_Tell_ her?" + +"Yes; tell her, and get her to divorce me, so that I can marry you. It's +the only straight thing." + +"How can we? It would hurt her so awfully." + +"Not so much as you think. Remember, she doesn't care for me. She's not +like you, Anne. She's frightfully cold." + +As he said it there came to her a sudden awful intimation of reality, a +sense that behind all their words, all the piled-up protection of their +outward thinking, there hid an unknown certainty, a certainty that would +wreck them if they knew it. It was safer not to know, to go on hiding +behind those piled-up barriers of thought. But an inward, ultimate +honesty drove her to her questioning. + +"Are you sure she's cold?" + +"Absolutely sure. You go on thinking all the time that she's like you, +that she takes things as hard as you do; but she doesn't. She doesn't +feel as you do. It won't hurt her as it would hurt you if I left you for +somebody else." + +"But--it'll hurt her." + +"It's better to hurt her a little now than to go on humbugging and +shamming till she finds out. That would hurt her damnably. She'd hate +our not being straight with her. But if we tell her the truth she'll +understand. I'm certain she'll understand and she'll forgive _you_. She +can't be hard on you for caring for me." + +"Even if she doesn't care?" + +"She cares for _you_," he said. + +She couldn't push it from her, that importunate sense of a certainty +that was not his certainty. If Maisie did care for him Jerrold wouldn't +see it. He never saw what he didn't want to see. + +"Supposing she _does_ care all the time? How do you know she doesn't?" + +"I don't think I can tell you." + +"But I _must_ know, Jerrold. It makes all the difference." + +"It makes none to me, Anne. I'd want you whether Maisie cared for me or +not. But she doesn't." + +"If I thought she didn't--then--then I shouldn't mind her knowing. Why +are you so certain? You might tell me." + +Then he told her. + +After all, that sense of hidden certainty was an illusion. + +"When was that, Jerrold?" + +"Oh, a night or two after she came down here in April. She didn't know, +poor darling, how she let me off." + +"April--September. And she's stuck to it?" + +"Oh--stuck to it. Rather." + +"And before that?" + +"Before that we were all right." + +"And she'd been away, too." + +"Yes. Ages. That made it all the funnier." + +"I wish you'd told me before." + +"I wish I had, if it makes you happier." + +"It does. Still, we can't go on, Jerrold, till she knows." + +"Of course we can't. It's too awful. I'll tell her. And we'll go away +somewhere while she's divorcing me, and stay away till I can marry +you.... It'll be all different when we've got away." + +"When you've told her. We ought to have told her long ago, before it +happened." + +"Yes. But now--what the devil _am_ I to tell her?" + +He saw, as if for the first time, what telling her would mean. + +"Tell her the truth. The whole truth." + +"How can I--when it's _you_?" + +"It's because it _is_ me that you've got to tell her. If you don't, +Jerrold, I'll tell her myself." + +"All right. I'll tell her at once and get it over. I'll tell her +tonight." + +"No. Not tonight, while she's so tired. Wait till she's rested." + +And Jerrold waited. + + + +XVI + + +ANNE, MAISIE, AND JERROLD + +i + +Jerrold waited, and Maisie got her truth in first. + +It was on the Wednesday, a fine bright day in September, and Jerrold was +to have driven Maisie and Anne over to Oxford in the car. And, ten +minutes before starting, Maisie had declared herself too tired to go. +Anne wouldn't go without her, and Jerrold, rather sulky, had set off by +himself. He couldn't understand Maisie's sudden fits of fatigue when +there was nothing the matter with her. He thought her capricious and +hysterical. She was acquiring his mother's perverse habit of upsetting +your engagements at the last moment; and lately she had been +particularly tiresome about motoring. Either they were going too fast or +too far, or the wind was too strong; and he would have to turn back, or +hold himself in and go slowly. And the next time she would refuse to go +at all for fear of spoiling their pleasure. She liked it better when +Anne drove her. + +And today Jerrold was annoyed with Maisie because of Anne. If it hadn't +been for Maisie, Anne would have been with him, enjoying a day's holiday +for once. Really, Maisie might have thought of Anne and Anne's pleasure. +It wasn't like her not to think of other people. Yet he owned that she +hadn't wanted Anne to stay with her. He could hear her pathetic voice +imploring Anne to go "because Jerry won't like it if you don't." Also he +knew that if Anne was determined not to do a thing nothing you could say +would make her do it. + +He had had time to think about it as he sat in the lounge of the hotel +at Oxford waiting for the friends who were to lunch with him. And +suddenly his annoyance had turned to pity. + +It was no wonder if Maisie was hysterical. His life with her was all +wrong, all horribly unnatural. She ought to have had children. Or he +ought never to have married her. It had been all wrong from the +beginning. Perhaps she had been aware that there was something missing. +Perhaps not. Maisie had seemed always singularly unaware. That was +because she didn't care for him. Perhaps, if he had loved her +passionately she would have cared more. Perhaps not. Maisie was +incurably cold. She shrank from the slightest gesture of approach; she +was afraid of any emotion. She was one of those unhappy women who are +born with an aversion from warm contacts, who cannot give themselves. +What puzzled him was the union of such a temperament with Maisie's +sweetness and her charm He had noticed that other men adored her. He +knew that if it had not been for Anne he might have adored her, too. And +again he wondered whether it would have made any difference to Maisie if +he had. + +He thought not. She was happy, as it was, in her gentle, unexcited way. +Happy and at peace. Giving happiness and peace, if peace were what you +wanted. It was that happiness and peace of Maisie's that had drawn him +to her when he gave Anne up three years ago. + +And again he couldn't understand this combination of hysteria and +perfect peace. He couldn't understand Maisie. + +Perhaps, after all, she had got what she had wanted. She wouldn't have +been happy and at peace if she had been married to some brute who would +have had no pity, who would have insisted on his rights. Some faithful +brute; or some brute no more faithful to her than he, who had been +faithful only to Anne. + +As he thought of Anne darkness came down over his brain. His mind +struggled through it, looking for the light. + +The entrance of his friends cut short his struggling. + + +ii + +Maisie lay on the couch in the library, and Anne sat with her. Maisie's +eyes had been closed, but now they had opened, and Anne saw them looking +at her and smiling. + +"You are a darling, Anne; but I wish you'd gone with Jerrold." + +"I don't. I wouldn't have liked it a bit." + +"_He_ would, though." + +"Not when he thought of you left here all by yourself." + +Maisie smiled again. + +"Jerry doesn't think, thank Goodness." + +"Why 'thank Goodness'?" + +"Because I don't want him to. I don't want him to see." + +"To see what?" + +"Why, that I can't do things like other people." + +"Maisie--_why_ can't you? You used to. Jerrold's told me how you used to +rush about, dancing and golfing and playing tennis." + +"Why? Did he say anything?" + +"Only that you took a lot of exercise, and he thinks it's awfully bad +for you knocking it all off now." + +"Dear old Jerry. Of course he must think it frightfully stupid. But I +can't help it, Anne. I can't do things now like I used to. I've got to +be careful." + +"But--why?" + +"Because there's something wrong with my heart. Jerry doesn't know it. I +don't want him to know." + +"You don't mean seriously wrong?" + +"Not very serious. But it hurts." + +"Hurts?" + +"Yes. And the pain frightens me. Every time it comes I think I'm going +to die. But I don't die." + +"Oh--_Maisie_--what sort of pain?" + +"A disgusting pain, Anne. As if it was full of splintered glass, mixed +up with bubbling blood, cutting and tearing. It grabs at you and you +choke; you feel as if your face would burst. You're afraid to breathe +for fear it should come again." + +"But, Maisie, that's angina." + +"It isn't real angina; but it's awful, all the same. Oh, Anne, what must +the real thing be like?" + +"Have you seen a doctor?" + +"Yes, two. A man in London and a man in Torquay." + +"Do they say it isn't the real thing?" + +"Yes. It's all nerves. But it's every bit as bad as if it was real, +except that I can't die of it." + +"Poor little Maisie--I didn't know." + +"I didn't mean you to know. But I _had_ to tell somebody. It's so awful +being by yourself with it and being frightened. And then I'm afraid all +the time of Jerrold finding out. I'm afraid of his _seeing_ me when it +comes on." + +"But, Maisie darling, he ought to know. You ought to tell him." + +"No. I haven't told my father and mother because they'd tell him. +Luckily it's only come on in the night, so that he hasn't seen. But it +might come on anywhere, any minute. If I'm excited or anything ... +That's the awful thing, Anne; I'm afraid of getting excited. I'm afraid +to feel. I'm afraid of everything that makes me feel. I'm afraid of +Jerrold's touching me, even of his saying something nice to me. The +least thing makes my silly heart tumble about, and if it tumbles too +much the pain comes. I daren't let Jerrold sleep with me." + +"Yet you haven't told him." + +"No; I daren't." + +"You _must_ tell him, Maisie." + +"I won't. He'd mind horribly. He'd be frightened and miserable, and I +can't bear him to be frightened and miserable. He's had enough. He's +been through the war. I don't mean that that frightened him; but this +would." + +"Do you mean to say he doesn't see it?" + +"Bless you, no. He just thinks I'm tiresome and hysterical. I'd rather +he thought that than see him unhappy. Nothing in the world matters but +Jerrold. You see I care for him so frightfully.... You don't know how +awful it is, caring like that, and yet having to beat him back all the +time, never to give him anything. I daren't let him come near me because +of that ghastly fright. I know you oughtn't to be afraid of pain, but +it's a pain that makes you afraid. Being afraid's all part of it. So I +can't help it." + +"Of course you can't help it." + +"I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for Jerry. I ought never to have married +him." + +"But, Maisie, I can't understand it. You're always so happy and calm. +How can you be calm and happy with _that_ hanging over you?" + +"I've got to be calm for fear of it. And I'm happy because Jerrold's +there. Simply knowing that he's there.... I can't think what I'd do, +Anne, if he wasn't such an angel. Some men wouldn't be. They wouldn't +stand it. And that makes me care all the more. He'll never know how I +care." + +"You must tell him." + +"There it is. I daren't even try to tell him. I just live in perpetual +funk." + +"And you're the bravest thing that ever lived." + +"Oh, I've got to cover it up. It wouldn't do to show it. But I'm glad +I've told you." + +She leaned back, panting. + +"I mustn't talk--any more now." + +"No. Rest." + +"You won't mind?... But--get a book--and read. You'll be--so bored." + +She shut her eyes. + +Anne got a book and tried to read it; but the words ran together, grey +lines tangled on a white page. Nothing was clear to her but the fact +that Maisie had told the truth about herself. + +It was the worst thing that had happened yet. It was the supreme +reproach, the ultimate disaster and defeat. Yet Maisie had not told her +anything that surprised her. This was the certainty that hid behind the +defences of their thought, the certainty she had foreseen when Jerrold +told her about Maisie's coldness. It meant that Jerrold couldn't escape, +and that his punishment would be even worse than hers. Nothing that +Maisie could have done would have been more terrible to Jerrold than her +illness and the way she had hidden it from him; the poor darling going +in terror of it, lying in bed alone, night after night, shut in with her +terror. Jerrold was utterly vulnerable; his belief in Maisie's +indifference had been his only protection against remorse. How was he +going to bear Maisie's wounding love? How would he take the knowledge of +it? + +Anne saw what must come of his knowing. It would be the end of their +happiness. After this they would have to give each other up; he would +never take her in his arms again; he would never come to her again in +the fields between midnight and dawn. They couldn't go on unless they +told Maisie the truth; and they couldn't tell Maisie the truth now, +because the truth would bring the pain back to her poor little heart. +They could never be straight with her; they would have to hide what they +had done for ever. Maisie had silenced them for ever when she got her +truth in first. To Anne it was not thinkable, either that they should go +on being lovers, knowing about Maisie, or that she should keep her +knowledge to herself. She would tell Jerrold and end it. + + +iii + +She stayed on with Maisie till the evening. + +Jerrold had come back and was walking home with her through the Manor +fields when she made up her mind that she would tell him now; at the +next gate--the next--when they came to the belt of firs she would tell +him. + +She stopped him there by the fence of the plantation. The darkness hid +them from each other, only their faces and Anne's white coat glimmered +through. + +"Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you something. About Maisie." + +He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the sudden start and check of +his hurt mind. + +"You haven't told her?" he said. + +"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want you to know. But +you've got to know it. You think she doesn't care for you, and she does; +she cares awfully. But--she's ill." + +"Ill? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is. I know Maisie." + +"You don't know that she gets heart attacks. Frightful pain, Jerrold, +pain that terrifies her." + +"My God--you don't mean she's got _angina_?" + +"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead. But pain so bad that +she thinks she's dying every time. It's what they call false angina. +That's why she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll come +on and you'll see her." + +Through the darkness she could feel the vibration of his shock; it came +to her in his stillness. + +"You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel because feeling brings +it on." + +He spoke at last. "Why on earth couldn't she tell me that?" + +"Because she loves you so awfully. The poor darling didn't want you to +be unhappy about her." + +"As if that mattered." + +"It matters more than anything to her." + +"Do you really mean that she's got that hellish thing? Who told her what +it was?" + +"Some London doctor and a man at Torquay." + +"I shall take her up to-morrow and make her see a specialist." + +"If you do you mustn't let her know I told you, or she'll never tell me +anything again." + +"What am I to say?" + +"Say you've been worried about her." + +"God knows I ought to have been." + +"You're worried about her, and you think there's something wrong. If she +says there isn't, you'll say that's what you want to be sure of." + +"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the real thing?" + +"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a +moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you +don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin." + +He was silent for a second. + +"Anne--she's beaten us. We can't tell her now." + +"No. And we can't go on. If we can't be straight about it we've got to +give each other up." + +"I know. We can't go on. There's nothing more to be said." + +His voice dropped on her aching heart with the toneless weight of +finality. + +"We've got to end it now, this minute," she said. "Don't come any +farther." + +"Let me go to the bottom of the field." + +"No. I'm not going that way." + +He had come close to her now, close, as though he would have taken her +in his arms for the last night, the last time. He wanted to touch her, +to hold her back from the swallowing darkness. But she moved out of his +reach and he did not follow her. His passion was ready to flame up if he +touched her, and he was afraid. They must end it clean, without a word +or a touch. + +The grass drive between the firs led to a gate on the hill road that +skirted the Manor fields. He knew that she would go from him that way, +because she didn't want to pass by their shelter at the bottom. She +couldn't sleep in it tonight. + +He stood still and watched her go, her white coat glimmering in the +darkness between the black rows of firs. The white gate glimmered at the +end of the drive. She stood there a moment. He saw her slip like a white +ghost between the gate and the gate post; he heard the light thud of the +wooden latch falling back behind her, and she was gone. + + + +XVII + + +JERROLD, MAISIE, ANNE, ELIOT + +i + +Maisie lay in bed, helpless and abandoned to her illness. It was no good +trying to cover it up and hide it any more. Jerrold knew. + +The night when he left Anne he had gone up to Maisie in her room. He +couldn't rest unless he knew that she was all right. He had stooped over +her to kiss her and she had sat up, holding her face to him, her hands +clasped round his neck, drawing him close to her, when suddenly the pain +gripped her and she lay back in his arms, choking, struggling for +breath. + +Jerrold thought she was dying. He waited till the pain passed and she +was quieted, then he ran downstairs and telephoned for Ransome. He +looked on in agony while Ransome's stethoscope wandered over Maisie's +thin breast and back. It seemed to him that Ransome was taking an +unusually long time about it, that he must be on the track of some +terrible discovery. And when Ransome took the tubes from his ears and +said, curtly, "Heart quite sound; nothing wrong there," he was convinced +that Ransome was an old fool who didn't know his business. Or else he +was lying for Maisie's sake. + +Downstairs in the library he turned on him. + +"Look here; there's no good lying to me. I want truth." + +"My dear Fielding, I shouldn't dream of lying to you. There's nothing +wrong with your wife's heart. Nothing organically wrong." + +"With that pain? She was in agony, Ransome, agony. Why can't you tell me +at once that it's angina?" + +"Because it isn't. Not the real thing. False angina's a neurosis, not a +heart disease. Get the nervous condition cured and she'll be all right. +Has she had any worry? Any shock?" + +"Not that I know." + +"Any cause for worry?" + +He hesitated. Poor Maisie had had cause enough if she had known. But she +didn't know. It seemed to him that Ransome was looking at him queerly. + +"No," he said. "None." + +"You're quite certain? Has she ever had any?" + +"Well, I suppose she was pretty jumpy all the time I was at the front." + +"Before that? Years ago?" + +"That I don't know. I should say not." + +"You won't swear?" + +"No. I won't swear. It would be years before we were married." + +"Try and find out," said Ransome. "And keep her quiet and happy. She'd +better stay in bed for a week or two." + +So Maisie stayed in bed, and Jerrold and Anne sat with her, together or +in turn. He had a bed made up in her room and slept there when he slept +at all. But half the night he lay awake, listening for the sound of her +panting and the little gasping cry that would come when the pain got +her. He kept on getting up to look at her and make sure that she was +sleeping. + +He was changed from his old happy, careless self, the self that used to +turn from any trouble, that refused to believe that the people it loved +could be ill and die. He was convinced that Maisie's state was +dangerous. He sent for Dr. Harper of Cheltenham and for a nerve +specialist and a heart specialist from London and they all told him the +same thing. And he wouldn't believe them. Because Maisie's death was the +most unbearable thing that his remorse could imagine, he felt that +nothing short of Maisie's death would appease the powers that punished +him. He was the more certain that Maisie would die because he had denied +that she was ill. For Jerrold's mind remembered everything and +anticipated nothing. Like most men who refuse to see or foresee trouble, +he was crushed by it when it came. + +The remorse he felt might have been less intolerable if he had been +alone in it; but, day after day, his pain was intensified by the sight +of Anne's pain. She was exquisitely vulnerable, and for every pang that +stabbed her he felt himself responsible. What they had done they had +done together, and they suffered for it together, but in the beginning +she had done it for him, and he had made her do it. Nobody, not even +Maisie, could have been more innocent than Anne. He had no doubt that, +left to herself, she would have hidden her passion from him to the end +of time. He, therefore, was the cause of her suffering. + +It was as if Anne's consciousness were transferred to him, day after +day, when they sat together in Maisie's room, one on each side of her +bed, while Maisie lay between them, sleeping her helpless and +reproachful sleep, and he saw Anne's piteous face, white with pain. His +pity for Maisie and his pity for Anne, their pity for each other were +mixed together and held them, close as passion, in an unbearable +communion. + +They looked at each other, and their wounded eyes said, day after day, +the same thing: "Yes, it hurts. But I could bear it if it were not for +you." Their pity took the place of passion. It was as if a part of each +other passed into them with their suffering as it had passed into them +with their joy. + + +ii + +And through it all their passion itself still lived its inextinguishable +and tortured life. Pity, so far from destroying it, only made it +stronger, pouring in its own emotion, wave after wave, swelling the +flood that carried them towards the warm darkness where will and thought +would cease. + +And as Jerrold's soul had once stirred in the warm darkness under the +first stinging of remorse, so now it pushed and struggled to be born; +all his will fought against the darkness to deliver his soul. His soul +knew that Anne saved it. If her will had been weaker his would not have +been so strong. At this moment an unscrupulous Anne might have damned +him to the sensual hell by clinging to his pity. He would have sinned +because he was sorry for her. + +But Anne's will refused his pity. When he showed it she was angry. Yet +it was there, waiting for her always, against her will. + +One day in October (Maisie's illness lasting on into the autumn) they +had gone out into the garden to breathe the cold, clean air while Maisie +slept. + +"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "do you think she knows?" + +"No. I'm certain she doesn't." + +"I'm not. I've an awful feeling that she knows and that's why she +doesn't get better." + +"I don't think so. If she knew she'd have said something or done +something." + +"She mightn't. She mightn't do anything. Perhaps she's just being +angelically good to us." + +"She _is_ angelically good. But she doesn't know. You forget her illness +began before there _was_ anything to know. It isn't the sort of thing +she'd think of. If somebody told her she wouldn't believe it. She trusts +us absolutely.... That's bad enough, Anne, without her knowing." + +"Yes. It's bad enough. It's worse, really." + +"I know it is.... Anne--I'm awfully sorry to have let you in for all +this misery." + +"You mustn't be sorry. You haven't let me in for it. Nobody could have +known it would have happened. It wouldn't, if Maisie had been different. +We wouldn't have bothered then. Nothing would have mattered. Think how +gloriously happy we were. All my life all my happiness has come through +you or because of you. We'd be happy still if it wasn't for Maisie." + +"I don't see how we're to go on like this. I can't stand it when you're +not happy. And nothing makes any difference, really. I want you so +awfully all the time." + +"That's one of the things we mustn't say to each other." + +"I know we mustn't. Only I didn't want you to think I didn't." + +"I don't think it. I know you'll care for me as long as you live. Only +you mustn't say so. You mustn't be sorry for me. It makes me feel all +weak and soft when I want to be strong and hard." + +"You _are_ strong, Anne." + +"So are you. I shouldn't love you if you weren't. But we mustn't make it +too hard for each other. You know what'll happen if we do?" + +"What? You mean we'd crumple up and give in?" + +"No. But we couldn't ever see each other alone again. Never see each +other again at all, perhaps. I'd have to go away." + +"You shan't have to. I swear I won't say another word." + +"Sometimes I think it would be easier for you if I went." + +"It wouldn't. It would be simply damnable. You can't go, Anne. That +_would_ make Maisie think." + + +iii + +After weeks of rest Maisie passed into a period of painless +tranquillity. She had no longer any fear of her illness because she had +no longer any fear of Jerrold's knowing about it. He did know, and yet +her world stood firm round her, firmer than when he had not known. For +she had now in Jerrold's ceaseless devotion what seemed to her the +absolute proof that he cared for her, if she had ever doubted it. And if +he had doubted her, hadn't he the absolute proof that she cared, +desperately? Would she have so hidden the truth from him, would she have +borne her pain and the fear of it, in that awful lonely secrecy, if she +had not cared for him more than for anything on earth? She had been more +afraid to sleep alone than poor Colin who had waked them with his +screaming. Jerrold knew that she was not a brave woman like Anne or +Colin's wife, Queenie; it was out of her love for him that she had drawn +the courage that made her face, night after night, the horror of her +torment alone. If he had wanted proof, what better proof could he have +than that? + +So Maisie remained tranquil, secure in her love for Jerrold, and in his +love for her, while Anne and Jerrold were tortured by their love for +each other. They were no longer sustained in their renunciation by the +sight of Maisie's illness and the fear of it which more than anything +had held back their passion. Without that warning fear they were exposed +at every turn. It might be there, waiting for them in the background, +but, with Maisie going about as if nothing had happened, even remorse +had lost its protective poignancy. They suffered the strain of perpetual +frustration. They were never alone together now. They had passed from +each other, beyond all contact of spirit with spirit and flesh with +flesh, beyond all words and looks of longing; they had nothing of each +other but sight, sight that had all the violence of touch without its +satisfaction, that served only to excite them, to torture them with +desire. They might be held at arm's length, at a room's length, at a +field's length apart, but their eyes drew them together, set their +hearts beating; in one moment of seeing they were joined and put +asunder. + +And, day after day, their minds desired each other with a subtle, +incessant, intensely conscious longing, and were utterly cut off from +all communion. They met now at longer and longer intervals, for their +work separated them. Colin had come home in October, perfectly +recovered, and he and Jerrold managed the Manor estate together while +Anne looked after her own farm. Jerrold never saw her, he never tried to +see her unless Colin or Maisie or some of the farm people were present; +he was afraid and Anne knew that he was afraid. Her sense of his danger +made her feel herself fragile and unstable. She, too, avoided every +occasion of seeing him alone. + +And this separation, so far from saving them, defeated its own end. +Every day it brought them nearer to the breaking point. It was against +all nature and all nature was against it. They had always before them +that vision of the point at which they would give in. Always there was +one thought that drew them to the edge of surrender: "I can bear it for +myself, but I can't bear it for him," "I can bear it for myself, but I +can't bear it for her." + +And to both of them had come another fear, greater than their dread of +Maisie's pain, the fear of each other's illness. Their splendid physical +health was beginning to break down. They worked harder than ever on the +land; but hard work exhausted them at the end of the day. They went on +from a sense of duty, dull and implacable, but they had no more pleasure +in it. Anne became every night more restless, every day more tired and +anaemic. Jerrold ate less and slept less. They grew thin, and their +faces took on the same look of fatigue and anxiety and wonder, as if, +more than anything, they were amazed at a world whose being connived at +and tolerated their pain. + +Maisie saw it and felt the first vague disturbance of her peace. Her +illness had worried everybody while it lasted, but she couldn't think +why, when she was well again, Anne and Jerrold should go on looking like +that. Maisie thought it was physical; the poor dears worked too hard. + +The change had been so gradual that she saw it without consternation, +but when Eliot came down in November he couldn't hide his distress. To +Eliot the significant thing was not Anne's illness or Jerrold's illness +but the likeness in their illnesses, the likeness in their faces. It was +clear that they suffered together, with the same suffering, from the +same cause. And when on his last evening Jerrold took him into the +library to consult him about Maisie's case, Eliot had a hard, straight +talk with him about his own. + +"My dear Jerrold," he said, "there's nothing seriously wrong with +Maisie. I've examined her heart. It isn't a particularly strong heart, +but there's no disease in it. If you took her to all the specialists in +Europe they'd tell you the same thing." + +"I know, but I keep on worrying." + +"That, my dear chap, is because you're ill yourself. I don't like it. +I'm not bothered about Maisie, but I am bothered about you and Anne." + +"Anne? Do you think _Anne's_ ill?" + +"I think she will be, and so will you if... What have you been doing?" + +"We've been doing nothing." + +"That's it. You've got to do something and do it pretty quick if it's to +be any good." + +Jerrold started and looked up. He wondered whether Eliot knew. He had a +way of getting at things, you couldn't tell how. + +"What d'you mean? What are you talking about?" His words came with a +sudden sharp rapidity. + +"You know what I mean." + +"I don't know how _you_ know anything. And, as a matter of fact, you +don't." + +"I don't know much. But I know enough to see that you two can't go on +like this." + +"Maisie and me?" + +"No. You and Anne. It's Anne I'm talking about. I suppose you can make a +mess of your own life if you like. You've no business to make a mess of +hers." + +"My God! as if I didn't know it. What the devil am I to do?" + +"Leave her alone, Jerrold, if you can't have her." + +"Leave her alone? I _am_ leaving her alone. I've got to leave her alone, +if we both die of it." + +"She ought to go away," Eliot said. + +"She shan't go away unless I go with her. And I can't."' + +"Well, then, it's an impossible situation." + +"It's a damnable situation, but it's the only decent one. You forget +there's Maisie." + +"No, I don't. Maisie doesn't know?" + +"Oh Lord, no. And she never will." + +"You ought to tell her." + +Jerrold was silent. + +"My dear Jerrold, it's the only sensible thing. Tell her straight and +get her to divorce you." + +"I was going to. Then she got ill and I couldn't." + +"She isn't ill now." + +"She will be if I tell her. It'll simply kill her." + +"It won't. It may--even--cure her." + +"It'll make her frightfully unhappy. And it'll bring back that infernal +pain. If you'd seen her, Eliot, you'd know how impossible it is. We +simply can't be swine. And if I could, Anne couldn't.... No. We've got +to stick it somehow, Anne and I." + +"It's all wrong, Jerrold." + +"I know it's all wrong. But it's the best we can do. You don't suppose +Anne would be happy if we did Maisie down." + +"No. No. She wouldn't. You're right there. But it's a damnable +business." + +"Oh, damnable, yes." + +Jerrold laughed in his agony. Yet he saw, as if he had never seen it +before, Eliot's goodness and the sadness and beauty of his love for +Anne. He had borne for years what Jerrold was bearing now, and Anne had +not loved him. He had never known for one moment the bliss of love or +any joy. He had had nothing. And Jerrold remembered with a pang of +contrition that he had never cared enough for Eliot. It had always been +Colin, the young, breakable Colin, who had clung to him and followed +him. Eliot had always gone his own queer way, keeping himself apart. + +And now Eliot was nearer to him than anything in the world, except Anne. + +"I'm sorry, Jerrold." + +"You're pretty decent, Eliot, to be sorry--I believe you honestly want +me to have Anne." + +"I wouldn't go so far as that, old man. But I believe I honestly want +Anne to have you.... I say, she hasn't gone yet, has she?" + +"No. Maisie's keeping her for dinner in your honour. You'll probably +find her in the drawing-room now." + +"Where's Maisie?" + +"She won't worry you. She's gone to lie down." + +Eliot went into the drawing-room and found Anne there. + +She looked at him. "You've been talking to Jerrold," she said. + +"Yes, Anne. I'm worried about him." + +"So am I." + +"And I'm worried about you." + +"And he's worried about Maisie." + +"Yes. I suppose he began by not seeing she was ill, and now he does see +it he thinks she's going to die. I've been trying to explain to him that +she isn't." + +"Can you explain why she's got into this state? It's not as if she +wasn't happy. She _is_ happy." + +"She wasn't always happy. Jerrold must have made her suffer damnably." + +"When?" + +"Oh, long before he married her." + +"But _how_ did he make her suffer?" + +"Oh, by just not marrying her. She found out he didn't care for her. Her +people took her out to India, I believe, with the idea that he would +marry her. And when they saw that Jerry wasn't on in that act they sent +her back again. Poor Maisie got it well rammed into her then that he +didn't care for her, and the idea's stuck. It's left a sort of wound in +her memory." + +"But she must have thought he cared for her when he did marry her. She +thinks he cares now." + +"Of course she thinks it. I don't suppose he's ever let her see." + +"I know he hasn't." + +"But the wound's there, all the same. She's never got over it, though +she isn't conscious of it now. The fact remains that Maisie's marriage +is incomplete because Jerry doesn't care for her. Part of Maisie, the +adorable part we know, isn't aware of any incompleteness; it lives in a +perpetual illusion. But the part we don't know, the hidden, secret part +of her, is aware of nothing else.... Well, her illness is simply +camouflage for that. Maisie's mind couldn't bear the reality, so it +escaped into a neurosis. Maisie's behaving as though she wasn't married, +so that her mind can say to itself that her marriage is incomplete +because she's ill, not because Jerry doesn't care for her. It's +substituted a bearable situation for an unbearable one." + +"Then, you don't think she _knows_?" + +"That Jerrold doesn't care for her? No. Only in that unconscious way. +Her mind remembers and _she_ doesn't." + +"I mean, she doesn't know about Jerrold and me?" + +"I'm sure she doesn't. If she did she'd do something." + +"That's what Jerrold said. What would she do?" + +"Oh something beautiful, or it wouldn't be Maisie. She'd let Jerrold +go." + +"Yes. She'd let him go. And she'd die of it." + +"Oh no, she wouldn't. I told Jerrold just now it might cure her." + +"How _could_ it cure her?" + +"By making her face reality. By making her see that her illness simply +means that she hasn't faced it. All our neuroses come because we daren't +live with the truth." + +"It's no good making Maisie well if we make her unhappy. Besides, I +don't believe it. If Maisie's unhappy she'll be worse, not better." + +"There _is_ just that risk," he said. "But it's you I'm thinking about, +not Maisie. You see, I don't know what's happened." + +"Jerrold didn't tell you?" + +"He only told me what I know already." + +"After all, what _do_ you know?" + +"I know you were all right, you and he, when I saw you together here in +the spring. So I suppose you were happy then. Jerrold looked wretchedly +ill all the time he was at Taormina. So I suppose he was unhappy then +because he was away from you. He looks wretchedly ill now. So do you. So +I suppose you're both unhappy." + +"Yes, we're both unhappy." + +"Do you want to tell me about it, Anne?" + +"No. I don't want to tell you about it. Only, if I thought you still +wanted to marry me----" + +"I do want to marry you. I shall always want to marry you. I told you +long ago nothing would ever make any difference. + +"Even if----?" + +"Even if--Whatever you did or didn't do I'd still want you. But I told +you--don't you remember?--that you could never do anything dishonourable +or cruel." + +"And I told you I wasn't sure." + +"And I am sure. That's enough for me. I don't want to know anything +more. I don't want to know anything you'd rather I didn't know." + +"Oh, Eliot, you _are_ so good. You're good like Maisie. Don't worry +about Jerry and me. We'll see it through somehow." + +"And if you can't stand the strain of it?" + +"But I can." + +"And if _he_ can't? If you want to be safe----" + +"I told you I should never want to be safe." + +"If you want _him_ to be safe, then, would you marry me?" + +"That's different. I don't know, Eliot, but I don't think so." + +He went away with a faint hope. She had said it would be different; what +she would never do for him she might do for Jerrold. + +She might, after all, marry him to keep Jerrold safe. + +Nothing made any difference. Whatever Anne did she would still be Anne. +And it was Anne he loved. And, after all, what did he know about her and +Jerrold? Only that if they had been lovers that would account for their +strange happiness seven months ago; if they had given each other up this +would account for their unhappiness now. He thought: How they must have +struggled. + +Perhaps, some day, when the whole story was told and Anne was tired of +struggling, she would come to him and he would marry her. + +Even if---- + + + +XVIII + + +JERROLD AND ANNE + +i + +The Barrow Farm house, long, low and grey, stood back behind the tall +elms and turned its blank north gable end to the road and the Manor +Farm. Its nine mullioned windows looked down the field to the river. And +the great barns were piled behind it, long roof-trees, steep, +mouse-coloured slopes and peaks above grey walls. + +Anne didn't move into the Barrow Farm house all at once. She had to wait +while Jerrold had the place made beautiful for her. + +This was the only thing that roused him to any interest. Through all his +misery he could still find pleasure in the work of throwing small rooms +into one to make more space for Anne, and putting windows into the south +gable to give her the sun. + +Anne's garden absorbed him more than his own seven hundred acres. Maisie +and he planned it together, walking round the rank flower-beds, and bald +wastes scratched up by the hens. + +There was to be a flagged court on one side and a grass plot on the +other, with a flower garden between. Here, Maisie said, there should be +great clumps of larkspurs and there a lavender hedge. They said how nice +it would be for Anne to watch the garden grow. + +"He's going to make it so beautiful that you'll want to stay in it +forever," she said. + +And Anne went with them and listened to them, and told them they were +angels, and pretended to be excited about her house and garden, while +all the time her heart ached and she was too tired to care. + +The house was finished by the end of November and Jerrold and Maisie +helped her to furnish it. Maisie sent to London for patterns and brought +them to Anne to choose. Maisie thought perhaps the chintz with the cream +and pink roses, or the one with the green leaves and red tulips and blue +and purple clematis was the prettiest. Anne tried to behave as if all +her happiness depended on a pattern, and ended by choosing the one that +Maisie liked best. And the furniture went where Maisie thought it should +go, because Anne was too tired to care. Besides, she was busy on her +farm. Old Sutton in his decadence had let most of his arable land run to +waste, and Anne's job was to make good soil again out of bad. + +Maisie was pleased like a child and excited with her planning. Her idea +was that Anne should come in from her work on the land and find the +house all ready for her, everything in its place, chairs and sofas +dressed in their gay suits of chintz, the books on their shelves, the +blue-and-white china in rows on the oak dresser. + +Tea was set out on the gate-legged table before the wide hearth-place. +The lamps were lit. A big fire burned. Colin and Jerrold and Maisie were +there waiting for her. And Anne came in out of the fields, tired and +white and thin, her black hair drooping. Her rough land dress hung slack +on her slender body. + +Jerrold looked at her. Anne's tired face, trying to smile, wrung his +heart. So did the happiness in Maisie's eyes. And Anne's voice trying to +sound as if she were happy. + +"You darlings! How nice you've made it." + +"Do you like it?" + +Maisie was breathless with joy. + +"I love it. I adore it! But--aren't there lots of things that weren't +here before? Where did that table come from?" + +"From the Manor Farm. Don't you remember it? That's Eliot." + +"And the bureau, and the dresser, and those heavenly rugs?" + +"That's Jerrold." + +And the china was Colin, and the chintz was Maisie. The long couch for +Anne to lie down on was Maisie. Everything that was not Anne's they had +given her. + +"You shouldn't have done it," she said. + +"We did it for ourselves. To keep you with us," said Maisie. + +"Did you think it would take all that?" + +She wondered whether they saw how hard she was trying to look happy, not +to be too tired to care. + +Then Maisie took her upstairs to show her her bedroom and the white +bathroom. Colin carried the lamp. He left them together in Anne's room. +Maisie turned to her there. + +"Darling, how tired you look. Are you too tired to be happy?" + +"I'd be a brute if I weren't happy," Anne said. + +But she wasn't happy. The minute they were gone her sadness came upon +her, crushing her down. She could hear Colin and Maisie, the two +innocent ones, laughing out into the darkness. She saw again Jerrold's +hard, unhappy face trying to smile; his mouth jerking in the tight, +difficult smile that was like an agony. And it used to be Jerrold who +was always happy, who went laughing. + +She turned up and down the beautiful lighted room; she looked again and +again at the things they had given her, Colin and Jerrold and Maisie. + +Maisie. She would have to live with the cruelty of Maisie's gifts, with +Maisie's wounding kindness and her innocence. Maisie's curtains, +Maisie's couch, covered with flowers that smiled at her, gay on the +white ground. She thought of the other house, of the curtains that had +shut out the light from her and Jerrold, of the couch where she had lain +in his arms. Each object had a dumb but poignant life that reminded and +reproached her. + +This was the scene where her life was to be cast. Henceforth these +things would know her in her desolation. Jerrold would never come to her +here as he had come to the Manor Farm house; they would never sit +together talking by this fireside; those curtains would never be drawn +on their passion; he would never go up to that lamp and put it out; she +would never lie here waiting, thrilling, as he came to her through the +darkness. + +She had wanted the Barrow Farm and she had got what she had wanted, and +she had got it too late. She loved it. Yet how was it possible to love +the place that she was to be so unhappy in? She ought to hate it with +its enclosing walls, its bright-eyed, watching furniture, its air of +quiet complicity in her pain. + +She drew back the curtains. The lamp and its yellow flame hung out there +on the darkness of the fields. The fields dropped away through the +darkness to the river, and there were the black masses of the trees. + +There the earth waited for her. Out there was the only life left for her +to live. The life of struggling with the earth, forcing the earth to +yield to her more than it had yielded to the men who had tilled it +before her, making the bad land good. Ploughing time would come and seed +time, and hay harvest and corn harvest. Feeding time and milking time +would come. She would go on seeing the same things done at the same +hour, at the same season, day after day and year after year. There would +have been joy in that if it had been Jerrold's land, if she could have +gone on working for Jerrold and with Jerrold. And if she had not been so +tired. + +She was only twenty-nine and Jerrold was only thirty-two. She wondered +how many more ploughing times they would have to go through, how many +seed times and harvests. And how would they go through them? Would they +go on getting more and more tired, or would something happen? + +No. Nothing would happen. Nothing that they could bear to think of. They +would just go on. + +In the stillness of the house she could feel her heart beating, +measuring out time, measuring out her pain. + + +ii + +That winter Adeline and John Severn came down to Wyck Manor for +Christmas and the New Year. + +Adeline was sitting in the drawing-room with Maisie in the heavy hour +before tea time. All afternoon she had been trying to talk to Maisie, +and she was now bored. Jerrold's wife had always bored her. She couldn't +imagine why Jerrold had married her when it was so clear that he was not +in love with her. + +"It's funny," she said at last, "staying in your own house when it isn't +your own any more." + +Maisie hoped that Adeline would treat the house as if it were her own. + +"I probably shall. Don't be surprised if you hear me giving orders to +the servants. I really cannot consider that Wilkins belongs to anybody +but me." + +Maisie hoped that Adeline wouldn't consider that he didn't. + +And there was a pause. Adeline looked at the clock and saw that there +was still another half-hour till tea time. How could they possibly fill +it in? Then, suddenly, from a thought of Jerrold so incredibly married +to Maisie, Adeline's mind wandered to Anne. + +"Is Anne dining here tonight?" she said. + +And Maisie said yes, she thought Adeline and Mr. Severn would like to +see as much as possible of Anne. And Adeline said that was very kind of +Maisie, and was bored again. + +She saw nothing before her but more and more boredom; and the subject of +Anne alone held out the prospect of relief. She flew to it as she would +have fled from any danger. + +"By the way, Maisie, if I were you I wouldn't let Anne see too much of +Jerrold." + +"Why not?" + +"Because, my dear, it isn't good for her." + +"I should have thought," Maisie said, "it was very good for both of +them, as they like each other. I should never dream of interfering with +their friendship. That's the way people get themselves thoroughly +disliked. I don't want Jerry to dislike me, or Anne, either. I like them +to feel that if he _is_ married they can go on being friends just the +same." + +"Oh, of course, if you like it----" + +"I do like it," said Maisie, firmly. + +Firm opposition was a thing that Adeline's wilfulness could never stand. +It always made her either change the subject or revert to her original +statement. This time she reverted. + +"My point was that it isn't fair to Anne." + +"Why isn't it?" + +"Because she's in love with him." + +"That," said Maisie, with increasing decision, "I do _not_ believe. I've +never seen any signs of it." + +"You're the only person who hasn't then. It sticks out of her. If it was +a secret I shouldn't have told you." + +"It is a secret to me," said Maisie, "so I think you might let it +alone." + +"You ought to know it if nobody else does. We've all of us known about +Anne for ages. She was always quite mad about Jerrold. It was funny when +she was a little thing; but it's rather more serious now she's thirty." + +"She isn't thirty," said Maisie, contradictiously. + +"Almost thirty. It's a dangerous age, Maisie. And Anne's a dangerous +person. She's absolutely reckless. She always was." + +"I thought you thought she was in love with Colin." + +"I never thought it." + +Maisie hated people who lied to her. + +"Why did you tell Jerrold they were lovers, then?" she said. + +"Did I tell Jerrold they were lovers?" + +"He thinks you did." + +"He must have misunderstood what I said. Colin gave me his word of +honour that there was nothing between them." + +But Maisie had no mercy. + +"Why should he do that if you didn't think there was? If you were +mistaken then you may be mistaken now." + +"I'm not mistaken now. Ask Colin, ask Eliot, ask Anne's father." + +"I shouldn't dream of asking them. You forget, if Jerrold's my husband, +Anne's my friend." + +"Then for goodness sake keep her out of mischief. Keep her out of +Jerrold's way. Anne's a darling and I'm devoted to her, but she always +did love playing with fire. If she's bent on burning her pretty wings it +isn't kind to bring her where the lamp is." + +"I'd trust Anne's wings to keep her out of danger." + +"How about Jerrold's danger? You might think of him." + +"I do think of him. And I trust him. Absolutely." + +"I don't. I don't trust anybody absolutely." + +"One thing's clear," said Maisie, "that it's time we had tea." + +She got up, with an annihilating dignity, and rang the bell. Adeline's +smile intimated that she was unbeaten and unconvinced. + +That evening John Severn came into his wife's room as she was dressing +for dinner. + +"I wish to goodness Anne hadn't this craze for farming," he said. "She's +simply working herself to death. I never saw her look so seedy. I'm +sorry Jerrold let her have that farm." + +"So am I," said Adeline. "I never saw Jerry look so seedy, either. +Maisie's been behaving like a perfect idiot. If she wanted them to go +off together she couldn't have done better." + +"You don't imagine," John said, "that's what they're after?" + +"How do I know what they're after? You never can tell with people like +Jerrold and Anne. They're both utterly reckless. They don't care who +suffers so long as they get what they want. If Anne had the morals of +a--of a mouse, she'd clear out." + +"I think," John said, "you're mistaken. Anne isn't like that.... I hope +you haven't said anything to Maisie?" + +Adeline made a face at him, as much as to say, "What do you take me +for?" She lifted up her charming, wilful face and powdered it carefully. + + +iii + +The earth smelt of the coming rain. All night the trees had whispered of +rain coming to-morrow. Now they waited. + +At noon the wind dropped. Thick clouds, the colour of dirty sheep's +wool, packed tight by their own movement, roofed the sky and walled it +round, hanging close to the horizon. A slight heaving and swelling in +the grey mass packed it tighter. It was pregnant with rain. Here and +there a steaming vapour broke from it as if puffed out by some immense +interior commotion. Thin tissues detached themselves and hung like a +frayed hem, lengthening, streaming to the hilltops in the west. + +Anne was going up the fields towards the Manor and Jerrold was coming +down towards the Manor Farm. They met at the plantation as the first big +drops fell. + +He called out to her, "I say, you oughtn't to be out a day like this." + +Anne had been ill all January with a slight touch of pleurisy after a +cold that she had taken no care of. + +"I'm going to see Maisie." + +"You're _not_," he said. "It's going to rain like fury." + +"Maisie knows I don't mind rain," Anne said, and laughed. + +"Maisie'd have a fit if she knew you were out in it. Look, how it's +coming down over there." + +Westwards and northwards the round roof and walls of cloud were shaken +and the black rain hung sheeted between sky and earth. Overhead the dark +tissues thinned out and lengthened. The fir trees quivered; they gave +out slight creaking, crackling noises as the rain came down. It poured +off each of the sloping fir branches like a jet from a tap. + +"We must make a dash for it," Jerrold said. And they ran together, +laughing, down the field to Anne's shelter at the bottom. He pushed back +the sliding door. + +The rain drummed on the roof and went hissing along the soaked ground; +it sprayed out as the grass bent and parted under it; every hollow tuft +was a water spout. The fields were dim behind the shining, glassy bead +curtain of the rain. + +The wind rose again and shook the rain curtain and blew it into the +shelter. Rain scudded across the floor, wetting them where they stood. +Jerrold slid the door to. They were safe now from the downpour. + +Anne's bed stood in the corner tucked up in its grey blankets. They sat +down on it side by side. + +For a moment they were silent, held by their memory. They were shut in +there with their past. It came up to them, close and living, out of the +bright, alien mystery of the rain. + +He put his hand on the shoulder of Anne's coat to feel if it was wet. At +his touch she trembled. + +"It hasn't gone through, has it?" + +"No," she said and coughed again. + +"Anne, I hate that cough of yours. You never had a cough before." + +"I've never had pleurisy before." + +"You wouldn't have had it if you hadn't been frightfully run down." + +"It's all over now," she said. + +"It isn't. You may get it again. I don't feel as if you were safe for +one minute. Are you warm?" + +"Quite." + +"Are your feet wet?" + +"No. No. No. Don't worry, Jerry dear; I'm all right." + +"I wouldn't worry if I was with you all the time. It's not seeing you. +Not knowing." + +"Don't," she said. "I can't bear it." + +And they were silent again. + +Their silence was more real to them than the sounding storm. There was +danger in it. It drew them back and back. It was poignant and +reminiscent. It came to them like the long stillness before their +passion. They had waited here before, like this, through moments tense +and increasing, for the supreme, toppling instant of their joy. + +Their minds went round and round, looking for words to break the silence +and finding none. They were held there by their danger. + +At last Anne spoke. + +"Do you think it's over?" + +"No. It's only just begun." + +The rain hurled itself against the window, as if it would pluck them out +into the storm. It brimmed over from the roof like water poured out from +a bucket. + +"We'll have to sit tight till it stops," he said. + +Silence again, long, inveterate, dangerous. Every now and then Anne +coughed, the short, hard cough that hurt and frightened him. He knew he +ought to leave her; every minute increased their danger. But he couldn't +go. He felt that, after all they might have done and hadn't done, heaven +had some scheme of compensation in which it owed them this moment. + +She turned from him coughing, and that sign of her weakness, the sight +of her thin shoulders shaking filled him with pity that was passion +itself. He thought of the injustice life had heaped on Anne's innocence; +of the cruelty that had tracked her and hunted her down; of his own +complicity with her suffering. He thought of his pity for Maisie as +treachery to Anne, of his honour as cowardice. Instead of piling up wall +after wall, he ought never to have let anything come between him and +Anne. Not even Maisie. Not even his honour. His honour belonged to Anne +far more than to Maisie. The rest had been his own blundering folly, and +he had no right to let Anne be punished for it. + +An hour ago the walls had stood solid between them. Now a furious +impulse seized him to tear them down and get through to her. This time +he would hold her and never let her go. + +His thoughts went the way his passion went. Then suddenly she turned and +they looked at each other and he thought no more. All his thoughts went +down in the hot rushing darkness of his blood. + +"Anne," he said, "Anne"--His voice sounded like a cry. + +They stood up suddenly and were swept together; he held her tight, shut +in his arms, his body straining to her. They clung to each other as if +only by clinging they could stand against the hot darkness that drowned +them; and the more they clung the more it came over them, wave after +wave. + +Then in the darkness he heard her crying to him to let her go. + +"Don't make me, Jerrold, don't make me." + +"Yes. Yes." + +"No. Oh, why did we ever come here?" + +He pressed her closer and she tried to push him off with weak hands that +had once been strong. He felt her breakable in his arms, and utterly +defenceless. + +"I can't," she cried. "I should feel as if Maisie were there and looking +at us.... Don't make me." + +Suddenly he let her go. + +He was beaten by the sheer weakness of her struggle. He couldn't fight +for his flesh, like a brute, against that helplessness. + +"If I go, you'll stay here till the rain stops?" + +"Yes. I'm sorry, Jerry. You'll get so wet." + +That made him laugh. And, laughing, he left her. Then tears came, +cutting through his eyelids like blood from a dry wound. They mixed with +the rain and blinded him. + +And Anne sat on the little grey bed in her shelter and stared out at the +rain and cried. + + + +XIX + + +ANNE AND ELIOT + +i + +She knew what she would do now. + +She would go away and never see Jerrold again, never while their youth +lasted, while they could still feel. She would go out of England, so far +away that they couldn't meet. She would go to Canada and farm. + +All night she lay awake with her mind fixed on the one thought of going +away. There was nothing else to be done, no room for worry or +hesitation. They couldn't hold out any longer, she and Jerrold, strained +to the breaking-point, tortured with the sight of each other. + +As she lay awake there came to her the peace that comes with all immense +and clear decisions. Her mind would never be torn and divided any more. +And towards morning she fell asleep. + +She woke dulled and bewildered. Her mind struggled with a sense of +appalling yet undefined disaster. Something had happened overnight, she +couldn't remember what. Something had happened. No. Something was going +to happen. She tried to fall back into sleep, fighting against the +return of consciousness; it came on, wave after wave, beating her down. + +Now she remembered. She was going away. She would never see Jerrold +again. She was going to Canada. + +The sharp, clear name made the whole thing real and irrevocable. It was +something that would actually happen soon. To her. She was going. And +when she had gone she would not come back. + +She got up and looked out of the window. She saw the green field sloping +down to the river and the road, and beyond the road, to the right, the +rise of the Manor fields and the belt of firs. And in her mind, more +real than they, the Manor house, the garden, and the many-coloured hills +beyond, rolling, curve after curve, to the straight, dark-blue horizon. +The scene that held her childhood, all her youth, all her happiness; +that had drawn her back, again and again, in memory and in dreams, +making her heart ache. How could she leave it? How could she live with +that pain? + +If she was going to be a coward, if she was going to be afraid of +pain--How was she to escape it, how was Jerrold to escape? If she stayed +on they would break down together and give in; they would be lovers +again, and again Maisie's sweet, wounding face would come between them; +they could never get away from it; and in the end their remorse would be +as unbearable as their separation. She couldn't drag Jerrold through +that agony again. + +No. Life wasn't worth living if you were a coward and afraid. And under +all her misery Anne had still the sense that life was somehow worth +living even if it made you miserable. Life was either your friend or +your enemy. If it was your friend you served it; if it was your enemy +you stood up to it and refused to let it beat you, and your enemy became +your servant. Whatever happened, your work remained. Still there would +be ploughing and sowing, and reaping and ploughing again. Still the +earth waited. She thought of the unknown Canadian earth that waited for +her tilling. + +Jerrold was not a coward. He was not afraid--well, only afraid of the +people he loved getting ill and dying; and she was not going to get ill +and die. + +She would have to tell him. She would go to him in the fields and tell +him. + +But before she did that she must make the thing irrevocable. So Anne +wrote to the steamship company, booking her passage in two weeks' time; +she wrote to Eliot, asking him to call at the company's office and see +if he could get her a decent cabin. She went to Wyck and posted her +letters, and then to the Far Acres field where Jerrold was watching the +ploughing. + +They met at the "headland." They would be safe there on the ploughed +land, in the open air. + +"What is it, Anne?" he said. + +"Nothing. I want to talk to you." + +"All right." + +Her set face, her hard voice gave him a premonition of disaster. + +"It's simply this," she said. "What happened yesterday mustn't happen +again." + +"It shan't. I swear it shan't. I was a beast. I lost my head." + +"Yes, but it may happen again. We can't go on like this, Jerry. The +strain's too awful." + +"You mean you can't trust me." + +"I can't trust myself. And it isn't fair to you." + +"Oh, me. That doesn't matter." + +"Well, then, say _I_ matter. It's the same for me. I'm never going to +let that happen again. I'm going away." + +"Going away--" + +"Yes. And I'm not coming back this time." + +His voice struggled in his throat. Something choked him. He couldn't +speak. + +"I'm going to Canada in a fortnight." + +"Good God! You can't go to Canada." + +"I can. I've booked my passage." + +His face was suddenly sallow white, ghastly. His heart heaved and he +felt sick. + +"Nothing on earth will stop me." + +"Won't Maisie stop you? If you do this she'll know. Can't you see how it +gives us away?" + +"No. It'll only give _me_ away. If Maisie asks me why I'm going I shall +tell her I'm in love with you, and that I can't stand it; that I'm too +unhappy. I'd rather she thought I cared for you than that she should +think you cared for me." + +"She'll think it all the same." + +"Then I shall have to lie. I must risk it.... Oh Jerry, don't look so +awful! I've got to go. We've settled it that we can't go on deceiving +her, and we aren't going to make her unhappy. There's nothing else to be +done." + +"Except to bear it." + +"And how long do you suppose that'll last? We _can't_ bear it. Look at +it straight. It's all so horribly simple. If we were beasts and only +thought of ourselves and didn't think of Maisie it wouldn't matter to us +what we did. But we can't be beasts. We can't lie to Maisie, and we +can't tell her the truth. We can't go on seeing each other without +wanting each other--unbearably--and we can't go on wanting each other +without--some day--giving in. It comes back the first minute we're +alone. And we don't mean to give in. So we mustn't see each other, +that's all. Can you tell me one other thing I can do?" + +"But why should it be _you_? Why should you get the worst of it?" + +"Because one of us has got to clear out. It can't be you, so it's got to +be me. And going away isn't the worst of it. It'll be worse for you +sticking on here where everything reminds you--At least I shall have new +things to keep my mind off it." + +"Nothing will keep your mind off it. You'll fret yourself to death." + +"No, I shan't. I shall have too much to do. You're _not_ to be sorry for +me, Jerrold." + +"But you're giving up everything. The Barrow Farm. The place you wanted. +You won't have a thing." + +"I don't want 'things.' It's easier to chuck them than to hang on to them +when they'll remind me.... Really, if I could see any other way I'd take +it." + +"But you can't go. You're not fit to go. You're ill." + +"I shall be all right when I get there." + +"But what do you think you're going to _do_ in Canada? It's not as if +you'd got anything to go for." + +"I shall find something. I shall work on somebody's ranch first and +learn Canadian farming. Then I shall look out for land and buy it. I've +got stacks of money. All Grandpapa Everitt's, and the money for the +farm. Stacks. I shall get on all right." + +"When did you think of all this?" + +"Last night." + +"I see. I made you." + +"No. I made myself. After all, it's the easiest way." + +"For you, or me?" + +"For both of us. Honestly, it's the only straight thing. I ought to have +done it long ago." + +"It means never seeing each other again. You'll never come back." + +"Never while we're young. When we're both old, too old to feel any more, +then I'll come back some day, and we'll be friends." + +And still his will beat against hers in vain, till at last he stopped; +sick and exhausted. + +They went together down the ploughed land into the pastures, and through +the pastures to the mill water. In the opposite field they could see the +brown roof and walls of the shelter. + +"What are you going to plant in the Seven Acres field?" + +"Barley," he said. + +"You can't. It was barley last year." + +"Was it?" + +They were silent then. Jerrold struggled with his feeling of deadly +sickness. Anne couldn't trust herself to speak. At the Barrow Farm gate +they parted. + +ii + +Maisie's eyes looked at him across the table, wondering. Her little +drooping mouth was half open with anxiety, as if any minute she was +going to say something. The looking-glass had shown him his haggard and +discoloured face, a face to frighten her. He tried to eat, but the sight +and smell of hot roast mutton sickened him. + +"Oh, Jerrold, can't you eat it?" + +"No, I can't. I'm sorry." + +"There's some cold chicken. Will you have that?" + +"No, thanks." + +"Try and eat something." + +"I can't. I feel sick." + +"Don't sit up, then. Go and lie down." + +"I will if you don't mind." + +He went to his room and was sick. He lay down on his bed and tried to +sleep. His head ached violently and every movement made him heave; he +couldn't sleep; he couldn't lie still; and presently he got up and went +out again, up to the Far Acres field to the ploughing. He couldn't +overcome the physical sickness of his misery, but he could force himself +to move, to tramp up and down the stiff furrows, watching the tractor; +he kept himself going by the sheer strength of his will. The rattle and +clank of the tractor ground into his head, making it ache again. He was +stunned with great blows of noise and pain, so that he couldn't think. +He didn't want to think; he was glad of the abominable sensations that +stopped him. He went from field to field, avoiding the boundaries of the +Barrow Farm lest he should see Anne. + +When the sun set and the land darkened he went home. + +At dinner he tried to eat, sickened again, and leaned back in his chair; +he forced himself to sit through the meal, talking to Maisie. When it +was over he went to bed and lay awake till the morning. + +The next day passed in the same way, and the next night; and always he +was aware of Maisie's sweet face watching him with frightened eyes and +an unuttered question. He was afraid to tell her that Anne was going +lest she should put down his illness to its true cause. + +And on the third day, when he heard her say she was going to see Anne, +he told her. + +"Oh, Jerrold, she can't really mean it." + +"She does mean it. I said everything I could to stop her, but it wasn't +any good. She's taken her passage." + +"But why--_why_ should she want to go?" + +"I can't tell you why. You'd better ask her." + +"Has anything happened to upset her?" + +"What on earth should happen?" + +"Oh, I don't know. When did she tell you this?" + +He hesitated. It was dangerous to lie when Maisie might get the truth +from Anne. + +"The day before yesterday." + +Maisie's eyes were fixed on him, considering it. He knew she was saying +to herself, "That was the day you came home so sick and queer." + +"Jerry--did you say anything to upset her?" + +"No." + +"I can't think how she could want to go." + +"Nor I. But she's going." + +"I shall go down and see if I can't make her stay." + +"Do. But you won't if I can't," he said. + + +iii + +Maisie went down early in the afternoon to see Anne. + +She couldn't think how Anne could want to leave the Barrow Farm house +when she had just got into it, when they had all made it so nice for +her; she couldn't think how she could leave them when she cared for +them, when she knew how they cared for her. + +"You _do_ care for us, Anne?" + +"Oh yes, I care." + +"And you _wanted_ the farm. I can't understand your going just when +you've got it, when you've settled, in and when Jerrold took all that +trouble to make it nice for you. It isn't like you, Anne." + +"I know. It must seem awful of me; but I can't help it, Maisie darling. +I've _got_ to go. You mustn't try and stop me. It only makes it harder." + +"Then it _is_ hard? You don't really want to go?" + +"Of course I don't. But I must." + +Maisie meditated, trying to make it out. + +"Is it--is it because you're unhappy?" + +Anne didn't answer. + +"You _are_ unhappy. You've been unhappy ever so long. Can't we do +anything?" + +"No. Nobody can do anything." + +"It isn't," said Maisie at last, "anything to do with Jerrold?" + +"You wouldn't ask me that, Maisie, if you didn't know it was." + +"Perhaps I do know. Do you care for him very much, Anne?" + +"Yes, I care for him, very much. And I can't stand it." + +"It's so bad that you've got to go away?" + +"It's so bad that I've got to go away." + +"That's very brave of you." + +"Or very cowardly." + +"No. You couldn't be a coward.... Oh, Anne darling, I'm so sorry." + +"Don't be sorry. It's my own fault. I'd no business to get into this +state. Don't let's talk about it, Maisie." + +"All right, I won't. But I'm sorry.... Only one thing. It--it hasn't +made you hate me, has it?" + +"You know it hasn't." + +"Oh, Anne, you _are_ beautiful." + +"I'm anything but, if you only knew." + +She had got beyond the pain of Maisie's goodness, Maisie's trust. No +possible blow from Maisie's mind could hurt her now. Nothing mattered. +Maisie's trust and goodness didn't matter, since she had done all she +knew; since she was going away; since she would never see Jerrold again, +never till their youth was gone and they had ceased to feel. + + +iv + +That afternoon Eliot arrived at Wyck Manor. His coming was his answer to +Anne's letter. + +He went over to the Barrow Farm about five o'clock when Anne's work +would be done. Anne was still out, and he waited till she should come +back. + +As he waited he looked round her room. This, he thought, was the place +that Anne had set her heart on having for her own; it was the home they +had made for her. Something terrible must have happened before she could +bring herself to leave it. She must have been driven to the +breaking-point. She was broken. Jerrold must have driven and broken her. + +He heard her feet on the flagged path, on the threshold of the house; +she stood in the doorway of the room, looking at him, startled. + +"Eliot, what are you doing there?" + +"Waiting for you. You must have known I'd come." + +"To say good-bye? That was nice of you." + +"No, not to say good-bye. I should come to see you off if you were +going." + +"But I am going. You've seen about my berth, haven't you?" + +"No, I haven't. We've got to talk about it first." + +He looked dead tired. She remembered that she was his hostess. + +"Have you had tea?" + +"No. You're going to give me some. Then we'll talk about it." + +"Talking won't be a bit of good." + +"I think it may be," he said. + +She rang the bell and they waited. She gave him his tea, and while they +ate and drank he talked to her about the weather and the land, and about +his work and the book he had just finished on Amoebic Dysentery, and +about Colin and how well he was now. Neither of them spoke of Jerrold or +of Maisie. + +When the tea things were cleared away he leaned back and looked at her +with his kind, deep-set, attentive eyes. She loved Eliot's eyes, and his +queer, clever face that was so like and so unlike his father's, so +utterly unlike Jerrold's. + +"You needn't tell me why you're going," he said at last. "I've seen +Jerrold." + +"Did he tell you?" + +"No. You've only got to look at him to see." + +"Do you think Maisie sees?" + +"I can't tell you. She isn't stupid. She must wonder why you're going +like this." + +"I told her. I told her I was in love with Jerrold." + +"What did she say?" + +"Nothing. Only that she was sorry. I told her so that she mightn't think +he cared for me. She needn't know that." + +"She isn't stupid," he said again. + +"No. But she's good. She trusts him so. She trusted me.... Eliot, that +was the worst of it, the way she trusted us. That broke us down." + +"Of course she trusted you." + +"Did you?" + +"You know I did." + +"And yet," she said, "I believe you knew. You knew all the time." + +"If I didn't, I know now." + +"Everything?" + +"Everything." + +"How? Because of my going away? Is that it?" + +"Not altogether. I've seen you happy and I've seen you unhappy. I've +seen you with Jerrold. I've seen you with Maisie. Nobody else would have +seen it, but I did, because I knew you so well. And because I was afraid +of it. Besides, you almost told me." + +"Yes, and you said it wouldn't make any difference. Does it?" + +"No. None. I know, whatever you did, you wouldn't do it only for +yourself. You did this for Jerrold. And you were unhappy because of it." + +"No. No. I was happy. We were only unhappy afterwards because of Maisie. +It was so awful going on deceiving her, hiding it and lying. I feel as +if everything I said and did then was a lie. That was how I was +punished. Not being able to tell the truth. And I could have borne even +that if it wasn't for Jerrold. But he hated it, too. It made him +wretched." + +"I know it did. If you hadn't been so fine it wouldn't have punished +you." + +"_The_ horrible thing was knowing what I'd done to Jerrold, making him +hide and lie." + +"Oh, what you've done to Jerrold--You've done him nothing but good. +You've made him finer than he could possibly have been without you." + +"I've made him frightfully unhappy." + +"Not unhappier than he's made you. And it's what he had to be. I told +you long ago Jerrold wouldn't be any good till he'd suffered damnably. +Well--he has suffered damnably. And he's got a soul because of it. He +hadn't much of one before he loved you." + +"How do you mean?" + +"I mean he used to think of nothing but his own happiness. Now he's +thinking of nothing but Maisie's and yours. He loves you better than +himself. He even loves Maisie better--I mean he thinks more of her--than +he did before he loved you. There are two people that he cares for more +than himself. He cares more for his own honour than he did. And for +yours. And that's your doing. Just think how you'd have wrecked him if +you'd been a different sort of woman." + +"No. Because then he wouldn't have cared for me." + +"No, I believe he wouldn't. He chose well." + +"You were always much too good to me." + +"No, Anne. I want you to see this thing straight, and to see yourself as +you really are. Not to go back on yourself." + +"I don't go back on myself. That would be going back on Jerrold. I'm +sorry because of Maisie, that's all. If I'd had an ounce of sense I'd +never have known her. I'd have gone off to some place not too far away +where Jerrold could have come to me and where I should never have seen +Maisie. That's what I should have done. We should both have been happy +then." + +"Yes, Jerrold would have been happy. And he wouldn't have saved his +soul. And he'd have been deceiving Maisie all the time. You don't really +wish you'd done that, Anne." + +"No. Not now. And I'm not unhappy about Maisie now. I'm going away. I'm +giving Jerrold up. I can't do more than that." + +"You wouldn't have to go away, Anne, if you'd do what I want and marry +me. You said perhaps you might if you had to save Jerrold." + +"Did I? I don't think I did." + +"You've forgotten and I haven't. You don't know what an appalling thing +you're doing. You're leaving everything and everybody you ever cared +for. You'll die of sheer unhappiness." + +"Nonsense, Eliot. You know perfectly well that people don't die of +unhappiness. They die of accidents and diseases and old age. I shall die +of old age. And I'll be back in twenty years' time if I've seen it +through." + +"Twenty years. The best years of your life. You'll be desperately +lonely. You don't know what it'll be like." + +"Oh yes, I do. I've been lonely before now. And I've saved myself by +working." + +"Yes, in England, where you could see some of us sometimes. But out +there, with people you never saw before--people who may be brutes--" + +"They needn't be." + +He went on relentlessly. "People you don't care for and never will care +for. You've never really cared for anybody but us." + +"I haven't. I'm going because I care. I can't let Jerry go on like that. +I've got to end it." + +"You're going simply to save Jerrold. So that you can never go back to +him. Don't you see that if you married me you'd both be safe? You +couldn't go back. If you were married to me Jerrold wouldn't take you +from me. If you were married to me you wouldn't break faith with me. If +you had children you wouldn't break faith with them. Nothing could keep +you safer." + +"I can't, Eliot. Nothing's changed. I belong to Jerrold. I always have +belonged to him. It isn't anything physical. Even if I'm separated from +him, thousands of miles, I shall belong to him still. My mind, or soul, +or whatever the thing is, can't get away from him.... You say if I +belonged to you I couldn't give myself to Jerrold. If I belong to +Jerrold, how can I give myself to you?" + +"I see. It's like that, is it?" + +"It's like that." + +Eliot said no more. He knew when he was beaten. + + +v + +Maisie sat alone in her own room, thinking it over. She didn't know yet +that Eliot had come. He had arrived while she was with Anne and she had +missed him on the way to Barrow Farm, driving up by the hill road while +he walked down through the fields. + +She didn't think of Jerrold all at once. Her mind was taken up with Anne +and Anne's unhappiness. She could see nothing else. She remembered how +Adeline had told her that Anne was in love with Jerrold. She had said, +"It was funny when she was a little thing." Anne had loved him all her +life, then. All her life she had had to do without him. + +Maisie thought: Perhaps he would have loved her and married her if it +hadn't been for me. And yet Anne had loved her. + +That was Anne's beauty. + +She wondered next: If Anne had been in love with Jerrold all that time, +and if they had all seen it, all the Fieldings and John Severn, how was +it that she had never seen it? She had seen nothing but a perfect +friendship, and she had tried to keep it for them in all its perfection, +so that neither of them should miss anything because Jerrold had married +her. She remembered how happy Anne had been when she first knew her, and +she thought: If she was happy then, why is she unhappy now? If she loved +Jerrold all her life, if she had done without him all her life, why go +away now? + +Unless something had happened. + +It was then that Maisie thought of Jerrold, and his sad, drawn face and +his sudden sickness the other day. That was the day he had been with +Anne, when she had told him that she was going away. He had never been +the same since. He had neither slept nor eaten. + +Maisie had all the pieces of the puzzle loose before her, and at first +sight not one of them looked as if it would fit. But this piece under +her hand fitted. Jerrold's illness joined on to Anne's going. With a +terrible dread in her heart Maisie put the two things together and saw +the third thing. Jerrold was ill because Anne was going away. He +wouldn't be ill unless he cared for her. And another thing. Anne was +going away, not because she cared, but because Jerrold cared. Therefore +she knew that he cared for her. Therefore he had told her. That was what +had happened. + +When she had put all the pieces into their places she would have the +whole story. + +But Maisie didn't want to know any more. She had enough to make her +heart break. She still clung to her belief in their goodness. They were +unhappy because they had given each other up. And under all her +thinking, like a quick-running pain, there went her premonition of its +end. She remembered that they had been happy once when she first knew +them. If they were unhappy now because they had given each other up, had +they been happy then because they hadn't? For a moment she asked +herself, "Were they--?" and was afraid to finish and answer her own +question. It was enough that they were all unhappy now and that none of +them would ever be happy again. Not Anne. Not Jerrold. _Their_ +unhappiness didn't bear thinking of, and in thinking of it Maisie forgot +her own. + +Her heart shook her breast with its beating, and for a moment she +wondered whether her pain were beginning again. Then the thought of Anne +and Jerrold and herself and of their threefold undivided misery came +upon her, annihilating every other thought. As if all that was physical +in Maisie were subdued by the intensity of her suffering, with the +coming of the supreme emotion her body had no pain. + + + +XX + + +MAISIE, JERROLD, AND ANNE + +i + +She got up and dressed for dinner as if nothing had happened, or, +rather, as if everything were about to happen and she were going through +with it magnificently, with no sign that she was beaten. She didn't know +yet what she would do; she didn't see clearly what there was to be done. +She might not have to do anything; and yet again, vaguely, +half-fascinated, half-frightened, she foresaw that she might be called +on to do something, something that was hard and terrible and at the same +time beautiful and supreme. + +And downstairs in the hall, she found Eliot. + +He told her that he had come down to see Anne and that he had done his +best to keep her from going away and that it was all no good. + +"We can't stop her. She's got an unbreakable will." + +"Unbreakable," she said. "And yet she's broken." + +"I know," he said. + +In her nervous exaltation she felt that Eliot had been sent, that Eliot +knew. Eliot was wise. He would help her. + +"Eliot----" she said. "Will you see me in the library after dinner? I +want to ask you something." + +"If it's about Anne, I don't know that there's anything I can say." + +"It's about Jerrold," she said. + +After dinner he came to her in the library. + +"Where's Jerrold?" + +"In the drawing-room with Colin. He won't come in." + +"Eliot, there's something awfully wrong with him. He can't sleep. He +can't eat. He's sick if he tries." + +"He looks pretty ghastly." + +"Do you know what's the matter with him?" + +"How can I know? He doesn't tell me anything." + +"It's ever since he heard that Anne's going." "He's worried about her. +So am I. So are you." + +"He isn't worrying. He's fretting.... Eliot--do you think he cares for +her?" + +Eliot didn't answer her. He looked at her gravely, searchingly, as if he +were measuring her strength before he answered. + +"Don't be afraid to tell me. I'm not a coward." + +"I haven't anything to tell you. It isn't altogether this affair of +Anne's. Jerrold hasn't been fit for a long time." + +"It's been going on for a long time." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"Oh," said Maisie, "everything." + +"Then why don't you ask him?" + +"But--if it is so--would he tell me?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps he wants to tell you, only he's afraid. Anyhow, +if it isn't so he'll tell you and you'll be happy." + +"Somehow I don't think I'm going to be happy." + +"Then," he said, "you're going to be brave." + +She thought: He knows. He's known all the time, only he won't give them +away. + +"Yes," she said, "I'll ask him." + +"Maisie--if it is so what will you do?" + +"Do? There's only one thing I _can_ do." + +She turned to him, and her milk-white face was grey-white, ashen; the +skin had a slack, pitted look, suddenly old. The soft flesh trembled. +But her mouth and eyes were still. In this moment of her agony no base +emotion defaced their sweetness, so that she seemed to him utterly +composed. She had seen what she could do. Something hard and terrible. + +"I can set him free." + + +ii + +That was the end she had seen before her, vaguely, as something not only +hard and terrible, but beautiful and supreme. To leave off clinging to +the illusion of her happiness. To let go. And with that letting go she +was aware that an obscure horror had been hanging over her for three +days and three nights and was now gone. She stood free of herself, in a +great light and peace, so that presently when Jerrold came to her she +met him with an incomparable tranquillity. + +"Jerrold--" + +The slight throbbing of her voice startled him coming out of her +stillness. + +They stood up, facing each other, in attitudes that had no permanence, +as if what must pass between them now would be sudden and soon over. + +"Do you care for Anne?" + +The words dropped clear through her stillness, vibrating. His eyes went +from her, evading the issue. Her voice came with a sharper stress. + +"I _must_ know. _Do_ you care for her?" + +"Yes." + +"And that's why she's going?" + +"Yes. That's why she's going. Did Eliot say anything?" + +"No. He only told me to ask you. He said you'd tell me the truth." + +"I have told you the truth. I'm sorry, Maisie." + +"I know you're sorry. So am I." + +"But, you see, it isn't as if I'd begun after I married you. I've cared +for her all my life." + +"Then why didn't you marry her?" + +"Because, first of all, I didn't know I cared. And afterwards I thought +she cared for Colin." + +"You never asked her?" + +"No. I thought--I thought they were lovers." + +"You thought that of her?" + +"Well, yes. I thought it would be just like her to give everything. I +knew if she cared enough she'd stick at nothing. She wouldn't do it for +herself." + +"That was--when?" + +"The time I came home on leave three years ago." + +"The time you married me. Why did you marry me, if you didn't care for +me?" + +"I would have cared for you if I hadn't cared for her." + +"But, when you cared for her----?" + +"I thought we should find something in it. I wanted you to be happy. +More than anything I wanted you to be happy. I thought I'd be killed in +my next action and that nothing would matter." + +"That you wouldn't have to keep it up?" + +"Oh, I'd have kept it up all right if Anne hadn't been there. I cared +enough for you to want you to be happy. I wanted you to have a child. +You'd have liked that. That would have made you happy." + +"Poor Jerrold----" + +"I'd have been all right if I hadn't seen Anne again." + +"When did you see her again?" + +"Last spring." + +"Only last spring?" + +"Yes, only." + +"When I was away." + +She remembered. She remembered how she had first come to Wyck and found +Jerrold happy and superbly well. + +"But," she said, "you were happy then." + +He sighed, a long, tearing sigh that hurt her. + +"Yes. We were happy then." + +And in a flash of terrific clarity she remembered her home-coming and +the night that followed it and Jerrold's acquiescence in their +separation. + +"Then," she said, "if you were happy----" + +"Do you want to know how far it went?" + +"I want to know everything. I want the truth. I think you owe me the +truth." + +"It went just as far as it could go." + +"Do you mean----" + +He stood silent and she found his words for him. + +"You were Anne's lover?" + +"Yes." + +Her face changed before him, as it had changed an hour ago before Eliot, +ashen-white and slack, quivering, suddenly old. + +Tears came into his eyes, tears of remorse and pity. She saw them and +her heart ached for him. + +"It didn't last long," he said. + +"How long?" + +"From March till--till September." + +"I remember." + +"Maisie--I can't ask you to forgive me. But you must forgive Anne. It +wasn't her fault. I made her do it. And she's been awfully unhappy about +it, because of you." + +"Ah--that was why----" + +"Won't you forgive her?" + +"I forgive you both. I don't know how I should have felt if you'd been +happy. I can't see anything but your unhappiness." + +"We gave it up because of you. That was Anne. She couldn't bear going on +after she knew you, when you were such an angel. It was your goodness +and sweetness broke us down." + +"But if I'd been the most disagreeable person it would have been just as +_wrong_." + +"It wouldn't, for in that case we shouldn't have deceived you. I should +have told you straight and left you." + +"Why didn't you tell me, Jerrold? Why didn't you tell me in the +beginning?" + +"We were afraid. We didn't want to hurt you." + +"As if that mattered." + +"It did matter. We were going to tell you. Then you were ill and we +couldn't. We thought you'd die of it, with your poor little heart in +that state." + +"Oh, my dear, did you suppose I'd hurt you that way?" + +"That was what we couldn't bear. Not being straight about it. That was +why we gave each other up. It never happened again. Anne's going away so +that it mayn't happen.... Maisie--you _do_ believe me?" + +"Yes, I believe you. I believe you did all you knew." + +"We did. But it's my fault that Anne's going. I lost my head, and she +was afraid." + +"If only you'd told me. I shouldn't have been hard on you, Jerry. You +knew that, didn't you?" + +"Yes. I knew." + +"And you went through all that agony rather than hurt me." + +"Yes." + +"The least I can do, then, is to let you go." + +"Would you, Maisie?" + +"Of course. I married you to make you happy. I must make you happy this +way, that's all. But if I do you mustn't think I don't care for you. I +care for you so much that nothing matters but your happiness." + +"Maisie, I'm not fit to live in the same world with you." + +"You mustn't say that. You're fit to live in the same world with Anne. I +suppose I could have made this all ugly and shameful for you. But I want +to keep it beautiful. I want to give you all beautiful to Anne, so that +you'll never go back on it, and never feel ashamed." + +"You made me ashamed every time we thought of you." + +"Don't think of me. Think of each other." + +"Oh--you're adorable." + +"No, I'm doing this because I love you both. But if I didn't love you I +should do it for myself. I should hate myself if I didn't. I can't think +of anything more disgusting and dishonourable than to keep a man tied to +you when he cares for somebody else. I should feel as if I were living +in sin." + +"Maisie--will you be awfully unhappy?" + +"Yes, Jerrold. But not so unhappy as if I'd kept you." + +"We'll go away somewhere where you won't have to see us." + +"No. It's I who'll go away." + +"But I want you to have the Manor and--and everything. Colin'll look +after the estate for me." + +"Do you think I could stay here after you'd gone?... No, Jerry, I can't +do that for you. You can't make it up that way." + +"I wasn't dreaming of making it up. I simply owe you everything, +everlastingly, and there's nothing I can do. I only remembered that you +liked the garden." + +"I couldn't bear it. I should hate the garden. I should hate the whole +place." + +"I've done that to you?" + +"Yes, you've done that to me. It can't be helped." + +"But, what will you _do_, Maisie?" + +"I shall go back to my own people. They happen to care for me." + +That was her one reproach. + +"Do you think _I_ don't?" + +"Oh no. I've done the only thing that would make you care. Perhaps +that's what I did it for." + +He took the hand she gave him and bowed his head over it and kissed it. + + +iii + +Maisie had a long talk with Eliot after Jerrold had left her. + +She was still tranquil and composed, but Jerrold was worried. He was +afraid lest the emotion roused by his confession should bring on her +pain. That night Eliot slept in his father's room, so that he could go +to her if the attack came. + +But it did not come. + +Late in the afternoon Jerrold went down to the Barrow Farm and saw Anne. +He came back with a message from her. Anne wanted to see Maisie, if +Maisie would let her. + +"But she thinks you won't," he said. + +"Why should I?" + +"She's desperately unhappy." + +She turned from him as if she would have left him, and then stayed. + +"You want me to see her?" + +"If you wouldn't hate it too much." + +"I shall hate it. But I'll see her. Go and bring her." + +She dreaded more than anything the sight of Anne. Her new knowledge of +her made Anne strange and terrible. She felt that she would be somehow +different. She would see something in her that she had never seen +before, that she couldn't bear to see. Anne's face would show her that +Jerrold was her lover. + +Yet, if she had never seen that look, if she had never seen anything in +Anne's face that was not beautiful, what did that mean but that Anne's +love for him was beautiful? Before it had touched her body it had lived +a long time in her soul. Either Anne's soul was beautiful because of it, +or it was beautiful because of Anne's soul; and Maisie knew that if she +too was to be beautiful she must keep safe the beauty of their passion +as she had kept safe the beauty of their friendship. It was clear and +hard, unbreakable as crystal. _She_ had been the one flaw in it, the +thing that had damaged its perfection. Now that she had let Jerrold go +it would be perfect. + +Anne stood in the doorway of the library, looking at her and not +speaking. She was the same that she had been yesterday, and before that, +and before that; dressed in the farm clothes that were the queer rough +setting of her charm. The same, except that she was still more broken, +still more beaten, and still more beautiful in her defeat. + +"Anne--" + +Maisie got up and waited, as Anne shut the door and stood there with her +back to it. + +"Maisie--I don't know why I've come. There were things I wanted to say +to you, but I can't say them." + +"You want to say you're sorry you took Jerrold from me." + +"I'm bitterly sorry." + +She came forward with a slender, awkward grace. Her eyes were fixed on +Maisie, thrown open, expecting pain; but she didn't shrink or cower. + +Maisie's voice came with its old sweetness. + +"You didn't take him from me. You couldn't take what I haven't got." + +"I gave him up, Maisie. I couldn't bear it." + +"And I've given him up. _I_ couldn't bear it, either. But," she said, +"it was harder for you. You had him. I'm only giving up what I've never +really had. Don't be too unhappy about it." + +"I shall always be unhappy when I think of you. You've been such an +angel to me. If we could only have told you." + +"Yes. If only you'd told me. That was where you went wrong, Anne." + +"I couldn't tell you. You were so ill. I thought it would kill you." + +"Well, what if it had? You shouldn't have thought of me, you should have +thought of Jerrold." + +"I did think of him. I didn't want him to have agonies of remorse. It's +been bad enough as it is." + +"I know what it's been, Anne." + +"That's what I really came for now. To see if you'd had that pain +again." + +"You needn't be afraid. I shall never have that pain again. Eliot told +me all about it last night." + +"What did he say?" + +"He showed me how it all happened. I was ill because I couldn't face the +truth. The truth was that Jerrold didn't care for me. It seems my mind +knew it all the time when I didn't. I did know it once, and part of me +went on feeling the shock of it, while the other part was living like a +fool in an illusion, thinking he cared. And now I've been dragged out of +it into reality. I'm facing it. _This_ is real. And whatever I may be I +shan't be ill again, not with that illness. I couldn't help it, but in a +way it was as false as if I'd made it up on purpose to hide the truth. +And the truth's cured me." + +"Eliot told me it might. And I wouldn't believe him." + +"You can believe him now. He said you and Jerrold were all right because +you'd faced the truth about yourselves and each other. You held on to +reality." + +"Eliot said that?" + +"Yes. He said it was the test of everybody, how they took reality, and +that Jerrold had had to learn how, but that you had always known. You +were so true that your worst punishment was not being able to tell me +the truth. I was to think of you like that." + +"How can you bear to think of me at all?" + +"How can I bear to live? But I shall live." + +Maisie's voice dropped, note by note, like clear, rounded tears, pressed +out and shaped by pain. + +Anne's voice came thick and quivering out of her dark secret anguish, +like a voice from behind shut doors. + +"Jerrold said you'd forgiven me. Have you?" + +"It would be easier for you if I didn't. But I can't help forgiving you +when you're so unhappy. I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't told +me the truth, if I'd had to find it out that time when you were happy. +Then I'd have hated you." + +"You don't now?" + +"No. I don't want to see you again, or Jerrold, either, for a long time. +But that's because I love you." + +"_Me_?" + +"Yes, you too, Anne." + +"How _can_ you love me?" + +"Because I'm like you, Anne; I'm faithful." + +"I wasn't faithful to you, Maisie." + +"You were to Jerrold." + +Anne still stood there, silent, taking in silence the pain of Maisie's +goodness, Maisie's love. + +Then Maisie ended it. + +"He's waiting for you," she said, "to take you home." + +Anne went to him where he stood by the terrace steps, illuminated by the +light from the windows. In there she could hear Colin playing, a loud, +tempestuous music. Jerrold waited. + +She went past him down the steps without a word, and he followed her +through the garden. + +"Anne--" he said. + +Under the blackness of the yew hedge she turned to him, and their hands +met. + +"Don't be afraid," he said. "Next week I'll take you away somewhere till +it's over." + +"Where?" + +"Oh, somewhere a long way off, where you'll be happy." + +Somewhere a long way off, beyond this pain, beyond this day and this +night, their joy waited. + +"And Maisie?" she said. + +"Maisie wants you to be happy." + +He held her by the hand as he used to hold her when they were children, +to keep her safe. And hand in hand, like children, they went down +through the twilight of the fields, together. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Anne Severn and the Fieldings, by May Sinclair + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10817 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c1b7fc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10817 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10817) diff --git a/old/10817.txt b/old/10817.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bdf901 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10817.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11934 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anne Severn and the Fieldings, by May Sinclair + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Anne Severn and the Fieldings + +Author: May Sinclair + +Release Date: January 29, 2004 [EBook #10817] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Terry Gilliland and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS + +By + +MAY SINCLAIR + + + +1922 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + +I Children + +II Adolescents + +III Anne and Jerrold + +IV Robert + +V Eliot and Anne + +VI Queenie + +VII Adeline + +VIII Anne and Colin + +IX Jerrold + +X Eliot + +XI Interim + +XII Colin, Jerrold, and Anne + +XIII Anne and Jerrold + +XIV Maisie + +XV Anne, Jerrold, and Maisie + +XVI Anne, Maisie, and Jerrold + +XVII Jerrold, Maisie, Anne, Eliot + +XVIII Jerrold and Anne + +XIX Anne and Eliot + +XX Jerrold, Maisie, and Anne + + +ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS + + + + +I + + +CHILDREN + +i + +Anne Severn had come again to the Fieldings. This time it was because +her mother was dead. + +She hadn't been in the house five minutes before she asked "Where's +Jerrold?" + +"Fancy," they said, "her remembering." + +And Jerrold had put his head in at the door and gone out again when he +saw her there in her black frock; and somehow she had known he was +afraid to come in because her mother was dead. + +Her father had brought her to Wyck-on-the-Hill that morning, the day +after the funeral. He would leave her there when he went back to India. + +She was walking now down the lawn between the two tall men. They were +taking her to the pond at the bottom where the goldfish were. It was +Jerrold's father who held her hand and talked to her. He had a nice +brown face marked with a lot of little fine, smiling strokes, and his +eyes were quick and kind. + +"You remember the goldfish, Anne?" + +"I remember everything." + +She had been such a little girl before, and they said she had forgotten. + +But she remembered so well that she always thought of Mr. Fielding as +Jerrold's father. She remembered the pond and the goldfish. Jerrold held +her tight so that she shouldn't tumble in. She remembered the big grey +and yellow house with its nine ball-topped gables; and the lawn, shut in +by clipped yew hedges, then spreading downwards, like a fan, from the +last green terrace where the two enormous peacocks stood, carved out of +the yew. + +Where it lay flat and still under the green wall she saw the tennis +court. Jerrold was there, knocking balls over the net to please little +Colin. She could see him fling back his head and laugh as Colin ran +stumbling, waving his racquet before him like a stiff flag. She heard +Colin squeal with excitement as the balls flew out of his reach. + +Her father was talking about her. His voice was sharp and anxious. + +"I don't know how she'll get on with your boys." (He always talked about +Anne as if she wasn't there.) "Ten's an awkward age. She's too old for +Colin and too young for Eliot and Jerrold." + +She knew their ages. Colin was only seven. Eliot, the clever one, was +very big; he was fifteen. Jerrold was thirteen. + +She heard Jerrold's father answering in his quiet voice. + +"You needn't worry. Jerry'll look after Anne all right." + +"And Adeline." + +"Oh yes, of course, Adeline." (Only somehow he made it sound as if she +wouldn't.) + +Adeline was Mrs. Fielding. Jerrold's mother. + +Anne wanted to get away from the quiet, serious men and play with +Jerrold; but their idea seemed to be that it was too soon. Too soon +after the funeral. It would be all right to go quietly and look at the +goldfish; but no, not to play. When she thought of her dead mother she +was afraid to tell them that she didn't want to go and look at the +goldfish. It was as if she knew that something sad waited for her by the +pond at the bottom. She would be safer over there where Jerrold was +laughing and shouting. She would play with him and he wouldn't be +afraid. + +The day felt like a Sunday, quiet, quiet, except for the noise of +Jerrold's laughter. Strange and exciting, his boy's voice rang through +her sadness; it made her turn her head again and again to look after +him; it called to her to forget and play. + +Little slim brown minnows darted backwards and forwards under the olive +green water of the pond. And every now and then the fat goldfish came +nosing along, orange, with silver patches, shining, making the water +light round them, stiff mouths wide open. When they bobbed up, small +bubbles broke from them and sparkled and went out. + +Anne remembered the goldfish; but somehow they were not so fascinating +as they used to be. + +A queer plant grew on the rock border of the pond. Green fleshy stems, +with blunt spikes all over them. Each carried a tiny gold star at its +tip. Thick, cold juice would come out of it if you squeezed it. She +thought it would smell like lavender. + +It had a name. She tried to think of it. + +Stonecrop. Stonecrop. Suddenly she remembered. + +Her mother stood with her by the pond, dark and white and slender. Anne +held out her hands smeared with the crushed flesh of the stonecrop; her +mother stooped and wiped them with her pockethandkerchief, and there was +a smell of lavender. The goldfish went swimming by in the olive-green +water. + +Anne's sadness came over her again; sadness so heavy that it kept her +from crying; sadness that crushed her breast and made her throat ache. + +They went back up the lawn, quietly, and the day felt more and more like +Sunday, or like--like a funeral day. + +"She's very silent, this small daughter of yours," Mr. Fielding said. + +"Yes," said Mr. Severn. + +His voice came with a stiff jerk, as if it choked him. He remembered, +too. + + +ii + +The grey and yellow flagstones of the terrace were hot under your feet. + +Jerrold's mother lay out there on a pile of cushions, in the sun. She +was very large and very beautiful. She lay on her side, heaved up on one +elbow. Under her thin white gown you could see the big lines of her +shoulder and hip, and of her long full thigh, tapering to the knee. + +Anne crouched beside her, uncomfortably, holding her little body away +from the great warm mass among the cushions. + +Mrs. Fielding was aware of this shrinking. She put out her arm and drew +Anne to her side again. + +"Lean back," she said. "Close. Closer." + +And Anne would lean close, politely, for a minute, and then stiffen and +shrink away again when the soft arm slackened. + +Eliot Fielding (the clever one) lay on his stomach, stretched out across +the terrace. He leaned over a book: _Animal Biology_. He was absorbed in +a diagram of a rabbit's heart and took no notice of his mother or of +Anne. + +Anne had been at the Manor five days, and she had got used to Jerrold's +mother's caresses. All but one. Every now and then Mrs. Fielding's hand +would stray to the back of Anne's neck, where the short curls, black as +her frock, sprang out in a thick bunch. The fingers stirred among the +roots of Anne's hair, stroking, stroking, lifting the bunch and letting +it fall again. And whenever they did this Anne jerked her head away and +held it stiffly out of their reach. + +She remembered how her mother's fingers, slender and silk-skinned and +loving, had done just that, and how their touch went thrilling through +the back of her neck, how it made her heart beat. Mrs. Fielding's +fingers didn't thrill you, they were blunt and fumbling. Anne thought: +"She's no business to touch me like that. No business to think she can +do what mother did." + +She was always doing it, always trying to be a mother to her. Her father +had told her she was going to try. And Anne wouldn't let her. She would +not let her. + +"Why do you move your head away, darling?" + +Anne didn't answer. + +"You used to love it. You used to come bending your funny little neck +and turning first one ear and than the other. Like a little cat. And now +you won't let me touch you." + +"No. No. Not--like that." + +"Yes. Yes. Like this. You don't remember." + +"I _do_ remember." + +She felt the blunt fingers on her neck again and started up. The +beautiful, wilful woman lay back on her cushions, smiling to herself. + +"You're a funny little thing, aren't you?" she said. + +Anne's eyes were glassed. She shook her head fiercely and spilled tears. + +Jerrold had come up on to the terrace. Colin trotted after him. They +were looking at her. Eliot had raised his head from his book and was +looking at her. + +"It _is_ rotten of you, mater," he said, "to tease that kid." + +"I'm not teasing her. Really, Eliot, you do say things--as if nobody but +yourself had any sense. You can run away now, Anne darling." + +Anne stood staring, with wild animal eyes that saw no place to run to. + +It was Jerrold who saved her. + +"I say, would you like to see my new buck rabbit?" + +"Rather!" + +He held out his hand and she ran on with him, along the terrace, down +the steps at the corner and up the drive to the stable yard where the +rabbits were. Colin followed headlong. + +And as she went Anne heard Eliot saying, "I've sense enough to remember +that her mother's dead." + +In his worst tempers there was always some fierce pity. + + +iii + +Mrs. Fielding gathered herself together and rose, with dignity, still +smiling. It was a smile of great sweetness, infinitely remote from all +discussion. + +"It's much too hot here," she said. "You might move the cushions down +there under the beech-tree." + +That, Eliot put it to himself, was just her way of getting out of it. To +Eliot the irritating thing about his mother was her dexterity in getting +out. She never lost her temper, and never replied to any serious +criticism; she simply changed the subject, leaving you with your +disapproval on your hands. + +In this Eliot's young subtlety misled him. Adeline Fielding's mind was +not the clever, calculating thing that, at fifteen, he thought it. Her +one simple idea was to be happy and, as a means to that end, to have +people happy about her. His father, or Anne's father, could have told +him that all her ideas were simple as feelings and impromptu. Impulse +moved her, one moment, to seize on the faithful, defiant little heart of +Anne, the next, to get up out of the sun. Anne's tears spoiled her +bright world; but not for long. Coolness was now the important thing, +not Anne and not Anne's mother. As for Eliot's disapproval, she was no +longer aware of it. + +"Oh, to be cool, to be cool again! Thank you, my son." + +Eliot had moved all the cushions down under the tree, scowling as he did +it, for he knew that when his mother was really cool he would have to +get up and move them back again. + +With the perfect curve of a great supple animal, she turned and settled +in her lair, under her tree. + +Presently, down the steps and across the lawn, Anne's father came +towards her, grave, handsome, and alone. + +Handsome even after fifteen years of India. Handsomer than when he was +young. More distinguished. Eyes lighter in the sallowish bronze. She +liked his lean, eager, deerhound's face, ready to start off, sniffing +the trail. A little strained, leashed now, John's eagerness. But that +was how he used to come to her, with that look of being ready, as if +they could do things together. + +She had tried to find his youth in Anne's face; but Anne's blackness and +whiteness were her mother's; her little nose was still soft and vague; +you couldn't tell what she would be like in five years' time. Still, +there was something; the same strange quality; the same +forward-springing grace. + +Before he reached her, Adeline was smiling again. A smile of the +delicate, instinctive mouth, of the blue eyes shining between curled +lids, under dark eyebrows; of the innocent white nose; of the whole +soft, milk-white face. Even her sleek, dark hair smiled, shining. She +was conscious of her power to make him come to her, to make herself felt +through everything, even through his bereavement. + +The subtle Eliot, looking over the terrace wall, observed her and +thought, "The mater's jolly pleased with herself. I wonder why." + +It struck Eliot also that a Commissioner of Ambala and a Member of the +Legislative Council and a widower ought not to look like Mr. Severn. He +was too lively, too adventurous. + +He turned again to the enthralling page. "The student should lay open +the theoracic cavity of the rabbit and dissect away the thymous gland +and other tissues which hide the origin of the great vessels; so as to +display the heart..." + +Yearp, the vet, would show him how to do that. + + +iv + +"His name's Benjy. He's a butterfly smut," said Jerrold. + +The rabbit was quiet now. He sat in Anne's arms, couching, his forepaws +laid on her breast. She stooped and kissed his soft nose that went in +and out, pushing against her mouth, in a delicate palpitation. He was +white, with black ears and a black oval at the root of his tail. Two +wing-shaped patches went up from his nose like a moustache. That was his +butterfly smut. + +"He _is_ sweet," she said. + +Colin said it after her in his shrill child's voice: "He is sweet." +Colin had a habit of repeating what you said. It was his way of joining +in the conversation. + +He stretched up his hand and stroked Benjy, and Anne felt the rabbit's +heart beat sharp and quick against her breast. A shiver went through +Benjy's body. + +Anne kissed him again. Her heart swelled and shook with maternal +tenderness. + +"Why does he tremble so?" + +"He's frightened. Don't touch him, Col-Col." + +Colin couldn't see an animal without wanting to stroke it. He put his +hands in his pockets to keep them out of temptation. By the way Jerrold +looked at him you saw how he loved him. + +About Colin there was something beautiful and breakable. Dusk-white +face; little tidy nose and mouth; dark hair and eyes like the minnows +swimming under the green water. But Jerrold's face was strong; and he +had funny eyes that made you keep looking at him. They were blue. Not +tiresomely blue, blue all the time, like his mother's, but secretly and +surprisingly blue, a blue that flashed at you and hid again, moving +queerly in the set squareness of his face, presenting at every turn a +different Jerrold. He had a pleasing straight up and down nose, his one +constant feature. The nostrils slanted slightly upward, making shadows +there. You got to know these things after watching him attentively. Anne +loved his mouth best of all, cross one minute (only never with Colin), +sweet the next, tilted at the corners, ready for his laughter. + +He stood close beside her in his white flannels, straight and slender. +He was looking at her, just as he looked at Colin. + +"Do you like him?" he said. + +"Who? Colin?" + +"No. Benjy." + +"I _love_ him." + +"I'll give him to you if you'd like to have him." + +"For my own? To keep?" + +"Rather." + +"Don't you want him?" + +"Yes. But I'd like you to have him." + +"Oh, Jerrold." + +She knew he was giving her Benjy because her mother was dead. + +"I've got the grey doe, and the fawn, and the lop-ear," he said. + +"Oh--I _shall_ love him." + +"You mustn't hold him too tight. And you must be careful not to touch +his stomach. If you squeeze him there he'll die." + +"Yes. If you squeeze his stomach he'll die," Colin cried excitedly. + +"I'll be ever so careful." + +They put him down, and he ran violently round and round, drumming with +his hind legs on the floor of the shed, startling the does that couched, +like cats, among the lettuce leaves and carrots. + +"When the little rabbits come half of them will be yours, because he'll +be their father." + +"Oh--" + +For the first time since Friday week Anne was happy. She loved the +rabbit, she loved little Colin. And more than anybody or anything she +loved Jerrold. + +Yet afterwards, in her bed in the night nursery, when she thought of her +dead mother, she lay awake crying; quietly, so that nobody could hear. + + +v + +It was Robert Fielding's birthday. Anne was to dine late that evening, +sitting beside him. He said that was his birthday treat. + +Anne had made him a penwiper of green cloth with a large blue bead in +the middle for a knob. He was going to keep it for ever. He had no +candles on his birthday cake at tea, because there would have been too +many. + +The big hall of the Manor was furnished like a room. + +The wide oak staircase came down into it from a gallery that went all +around. They were waiting there for Mrs. Fielding who was always a +little late. That made you keep on thinking about her. They were +thinking about her now. + +Up there a door opened and shut. Something moved along the gallery like +a large light, and Mrs. Fielding came down the stairs, slowly, +prolonging her effect. She was dressed in her old pearl-white gown. A +rope of pearls went round her neck and hung between her breasts. Roll +above roll of hair jutted out at the back of her head; across it, the +foremost curl rose like a comb, shining. Her eyes, intensely blue in her +milk-white face, sparkled between two dark wings of hair. Her mouth +smiled its enchanting and enchanted smile. She was aware that her +husband and John watched her from stair to stair; she was aware of their +men's eyes, darkening. Then suddenly she was aware of John's daughter. + +Anne was coming towards her across the hall, drawn by the magic, by the +eyes, by the sweet flower smell that drifted (not lavender, not +lavender). She stood at the foot of the staircase looking up. The +heavenly thing swept down to her and she broke into a cry. + +"Oh, you're beautiful. You're beautiful." + +Mrs. Fielding stopped her progress. + +"So are you, you little darling." + +She stooped quickly and kissed her, holding her tight to her breast, +crushed down into the bed of the flower scent. Anne gave herself up, +caught by the sweetness and the beauty. + +"You rogue," said Adeline. "At last I've got you." + +She couldn't bear to be repulsed, to have anything about her, even a cat +or a dog, that had not surrendered. + + +vi + +Every evening, soon after Colin's Nanna had tucked Anne up in her bed +and left her, the door of the night nursery would open, letting a light +in. When Anne saw the light coming she shut her eyes and burrowed under +the blankets, she knew it was Auntie Adeline trying to be a mother to +her. (You called them Auntie Adeline and Uncle Robert to please them, +though they weren't relations.) + +Every night she would hear Aunt Adeline's feet on the floor and her +candle clattering on the chest of drawers, she would feel her hands +drawing back the blankets and her face bending down over her. The mouth +would brush her forehead. And she would lie stiff and still, keeping her +eyes tight shut. + +To-night she heard voices at the door and somebody else's feet going +tip-toe behind Aunt Adeline's. Somebody else whispered "She's asleep." +That was Jerrold. Jerrold. She felt him standing beside his mother, +looking at her, and her eyelids fluttered; but she lay still. + +"She isn't asleep at all," said Aunt Adeline. "She's shamming, the +little monkey." + +Jerrold thought he knew why. He turned into the old nursery that was the +schoolroom now, and found Eliot there, examining a fly's leg under his +microscope. It was Eliot that he wanted.. + +"I say, you know, Mum's making a jolly mistake about that kid. Trying to +go on as if she was Anne's mother. You can see it makes her sick. It +would me, if my mother was dead." + +Eliot looked as if he wasn't listening, absorbed in his fly's leg. + +"Somebody's got to tell her." + +"Are you going to," said Eliot, "or shall I?" + +"Neither. I shall get Dad to. He'll do it best." + + +vii + +Robert Fielding didn't do it all at once. He put it off till Adeline +gave him his chance. He found her alone in the library and she had begun +it. + +"Robert, I don't know what to do about that child." + +"Which child?" + +"Anne. She's been here five weeks, and I've done everything I know, and +she hasn't shown me a scrap of affection. It's pretty hard if I'm to +house and feed the little thing and look after her like a mother and get +nothing. Nothing but half a cold little face to kiss night and morning. +It isn't good enough." + +"For Anne?" + +"For me, my dear. Trying to be a mother to somebody else's child who +doesn't love you, and isn't going to love you." + +"Don't try then." + +"Don't try?" + +"Don't try and be a mother to her. That's what Anne doesn't like." + +They had got as far as that when John Severn stood in the doorway. He +was retreating before their appearance of communion when she called him +back. + +"Don't go, John. We want you. Here's Robert telling me not to be a +mother to Anne." + +"And here's Adeline worrying because she thinks Anne isn't going to love +her." + +Severn sat down, considering it. + +"It takes time," he said. + +She looked at him, smiling under lowered brows. + +"Time to love me?" + +"Time for Anne to love you. She--she's so desperately faithful." + +The dressing-bell clanged from the belfry. Robert left them to finish a +discussion that he found embarrassing. + +"I said I'd try to be a mother to her. I _have_ tried, John; but the +little thing won't let me." + +"Don't try too hard. Robert's right. Don't--don't be a mother to her." + +"What am I to be?" + +"Oh, anything you like. A presence. A heavenly apparition. An impossible +ideal. Anything but that." + +"Do you think she's going to hold out for ever?" + +"Only against that. As long as she remembers. It puts her off." + +"She doesn't object to Robert being a father to her." + +"No. Because he's a better father than I am; and she knows it." + +Adeline flushed. She understood the implication and was hurt, +unreasonably. He saw her unreasonableness and her pain. + +"My dear Adeline, Anne's mother will always be Anne's mother. I was +never anywhere beside Alice. I've had to choose between the Government +of India and my daughter. You'll observe that I don't try to be a father +to Anne; and that, in consequence, Anne likes me. But she'll _love_ +Robert." + +"And 'like' me? If I don't try." + +"Give her time. Give her time." + +He rose, smiling down at her. + +"You think I'm unreasonable?" + +"The least bit in the world. For the moment." + +"My dear John, if I didn't love your little girl I wouldn't care." + +"Love her. Love her. She'll love you too, in her rum way. She's fighting +you now. She wouldn't fight if she didn't feel she was beaten. Nobody +could hold out against you long." + +She looked at the clock. + +"Heavens! I must go and dress." + +She thought: "_He_ didn't hold out against me, poor dear, five minutes. +I suppose he'll always remember that I jilted him for Robert." + +And now he wanted her to see that if Anne's mother would be always +Anne's mother, his wife would be always his wife. Was he desperately +faithful, too? Always? + +How could he have been? It was characteristic of Alice Severn that when +she had to choose between her husband and her daughter she had chosen +Anne. It was characteristic of John that when he had to choose between +his wife and his Government, he had not chosen Alice. He must have had +adventures out in India, conducted with the discretion becoming in a +Commissioner and a Member of the Legislative Council, but adventures. +Perhaps he was going back to one of them. + +Severn dressed hastily and went into the schoolroom where Anne sat +reading in her solitary hour between supper time and bed-time. He took +her on his knee, and she snuggled there, rubbing her head against his +shoulder. He thought of Adeline, teasing, teasing for the child's +caresses, and every time repulsed. + +"Anne," he said, "don't you think you can love Auntie Adeline?" + +Anne straightened herself. She looked at him with candid eyes. "I don't +know, Daddy, really, if I can." + +"Can't you love her a little?" + +"I--I would, if she wouldn't try--" + +"Try?" + +"To do like Mummy did." + +Robert was right. He knew it, but he wanted to be sure. + +Anne went on. "It's no use, you see, her trying. It only makes me think +of Mummy more." + +"Don't you _want_ to think of her?" + +"Yes. But I want to think by myself, and Auntie Adeline keeps on getting +in the way." + +"Still, she's awfully kind to you, isn't she?" + +"Awfully." + +"And you mustn't hurt her feelings." + +"Have I? I didn't mean to." + +"You wouldn't if you loved her." + +"_You_ haven't ever hurt her feelings, have you, Daddy?" + +"No." + +"Well, you see, it's because I keep on thinking about Mummy. I want her +back--I want her so awfully." + +"I know, Anne, I know." + +Anne's mind burrowed under, turning on its tracks, coming out suddenly. + +"Do you love Auntie Adeline, Daddy?" + +It was terrible, but he owned that he had brought it on himself. + +"I can't say. I've known her such a long time; before you were born." + +"Before you married Mummy!" + +"Yes." + +"Well, won't it do if I love Uncle Robert and Eliot and Colin? And +Jerrold?" + +That night he said to Adeline, "I know who'll take my place when I'm +gone." + +"Who? Robert?" + +"No, Jerrold." + +In another week he had sailed for India and Ambala. + + * * * * * + + +viii + +Jerrold was brave. + +When Colin upset the schoolroom lamp Jerrold wrapped it in the +tablecloth and threw it out of the window just in time. He put the chain +on Billy, the sheep-dog, when he went mad and snapped at everybody. It +seemed odd that Jerrold should be frightened. + +A minute ago he had been happy, rolling over and over on the grass, +shouting with laughter while Sandy, the Aberdeen, jumped on him, +growling his merry puppy's growl and biting the balled fists that pushed +him off. + +They were all out on the lawn. Anne waited for Jerry to get up and take +her into Wyck, to buy chocolates. + +Every time Jerrold laughed his mother laughed too, a throaty, girlish +giggle. + +"I love Jerry's laugh," she said. "It's the nicest noise he makes." + +Then, suddenly, she stopped it. She stopped it with a word. + +"If you're going into Wyck, Jerry, you might tell Yearp----" + +Yearp. + +He got up. His face was very red. He looked mournful and frightened too. +Yes, frightened. + +"I--can't, Mother." + +"You can perfectly well. Tell Yearp to come and look at Pussy's ears, I +think she's got canker." + +"She hasn't," said Jerry defiantly. + +"She jolly well has," said Eliot. + +"Rot." + +"You only say that because you don't like to think she's got it." + +"Eliot can go himself. _He's_ fond of Yearp." + +"You'll do as you're told, Jerry. It's downright cowardice." + +"It isn't cowardice, is it, Daddy?" + +"Well," said his father, "it isn't exactly courage." + +"Whatever it is," his mother said, "you'll have to get over it. You go +on as if nobody cared about poor Binky but yourself." + +Binky was Jerry's dog. He had run into a motor-bicycle in the Easter +holidays and hurt his back, so that Yearp, the vet, had had to come and +give him chloroform. That was why Jerrold was afraid of Yearp. When he +saw him he saw Binky with his nose in the cup of chloroform; he heard +him snorting out his last breath. And he couldn't bear it. + +"I could send one of the men," his father was saying. + +"Don't encourage him, Robert. He's got to face it." + +"Yes, Jerrold, you'd better go and get it over. You can't go on funking +it for ever." + +Jerrold went. But he went alone, he wouldn't let Anne go with him. He +said he didn't want her to be mixed up with it. + +"He means," said Eliot, "that he doesn't want to think of Yearp every +time he sees Anne." + + +ix + +It was true that Eliot was fond of Yearp's society. He would spend hours +with him, learning how to dissect frogs and rabbits and pigeons. He +drove about the country with Yearp seeing the sick animals, the ewes at +lambing time and the cows at their calving. And he spent half the +midsummer holidays reading _Animal Biology_ and drawing diagrams of +frogs' hearts and pigeons' brains. He said he wasn't going to Oxford or +Cambridge when he left Cheltenham; he was going to Barts. He wanted to +be a doctor. But his mother said he didn't know what he'd want to be in +three years' time. She thought him awful, with his frogs' hearts and +horrors. + +Next to Jerrold and little Colin Anne loved Eliot. He seemed to know +when she was thinking about her mother and to understand. He took her +into the woods to look for squirrels; he showed her the wildflowers and +told her all their names: bugloss, and lady's smock and speedwell, +king-cup, willow herb and meadow sweet, crane's bill and celandine. + +One day they found in the garden a tiny egg-shaped shell made of +gold-coloured lattice work. When they put it under the microscope they +saw inside it a thing like a green egg. Every day they watched it; it +put out two green horns, and a ridge grew down the middle of it, and one +morning they found the golden shell broken. A long, elegant fly with +slender wings crawled beside it. + +When Benjy died of eating too much lettuce Eliot was sorry. Aunt Adeline +said it was all put on and that he really wanted to cut him up and see +what he was made of. But Eliot didn't. He said Benjy was sacred. That +was because he knew they loved him. And he dug the grave and lined it +with moss and told Aunt Adeline to shut up when she said it ought to +have been lettuce leaves. + +Aunt Adeline complained that it was hard that Eliot couldn't be nice to +her when he was her favorite. + +"Little Anne, little Anne, what have you done to my Eliot?" She was +always saying things like that. Anne couldn't think what she meant till +Jerrold told her she was the only kid that Eliot had ever looked at. The +big Hawtrey girl from Medlicote would have given her head to be in +Anne's shoes. + +But Anne didn't care. Her love for Jerrold was sharp and exciting. She +brought tears to it and temper. It was mixed up with God and music and +the deaths of animals, and sunsets and all sorrowful and beautiful and +mysterious things. Thinking about her mother made her think about +Jerrold; but she never thought about Eliot at all when he wasn't there. + +She would run away from Eliot any minute if she heard Jerrold calling. +It was Jerrold, Jerrold, all the time, said Aunt Adeline. + +And when Eliot was busy with his microscope and Jerrold had turned from +her to Colin, there was Uncle Robert. He seemed to know the moments when +she wanted him. Then he would take her out riding with him over the +estate that stretched from Wyck across the valley of the Speed and +beyond it for miles over the hills. And he would show her the reaping +machines at work, and the great carthorses, and the prize bullocks in +their stalls at the Manor Farm. And Anne told him her secret, the secret +she had told to nobody but Jerrold. + +"Some day," she said, "I shall have a farm, with horses and cows and +pigs and little calves." + +"Shall you like that?" + +"Yes," said Anne. "I would. Only it can't happen till Grandpapa's dead. +And I don't want him to die." + + +x + +They were saying now that Colin was wonderful. He was only seven, yet he +could play the piano like a grown-up person, very fast and with loud +noises in the bass. And he could sing like an angel. When you heard him +you could hardly believe that he was a little boy who cried sometimes +and was afraid of ghosts. Two masters came out from Cheltenham twice a +week to teach him. Eliot said Colin would be a professional when he grew +up, but his mother said he should be nothing of the sort and Eliot +wasn't to go putting nonsense like that into his head. Still, she was +proud of Colin when his hands went pounding and flashing over the keys. +Anne had to give up practising because she did it so badly that it hurt +Colin to hear her. + +He wasn't in the least conceited about his playing, not even when +Jerrold stood beside him and looked on and said, "Clever Col-Col. Isn't +he a wonderful kid? Look at him. Look at his little hands, all over the +place." + +He didn't think playing was wonderful. He thought the things that +Jerrold did were wonderful. With his child's legs and arms he tried to +do the things that Jerrold did. They told him he would have to wait nine +years before he could do them. He was always talking about what he would +do in nine years' time. + +And there was the day of the walk to High Slaughter, through the valley +of the Speed to the valley of the Windlode, five miles there and back. +Eliot and Jerrold and Anne had tried to sneak out when Colin wasn't +looking; but he had seen them and came running after them down the +field, calling to them to let him come. Eliot shouted "We can't, +Col-Col, it's too far," but Colin looked so pathetic, standing there in +the big field, that Jerrold couldn't bear it. + +"I think," he said, "we might let him come." + +"Yes. Let him," Anne said. + +"Rot. He can't walk it." + +"I can," said Colin. "I can." + +"I tell you he can't. If he's tired he'll be sick in the night and then +he'll say it's ghosts." + +Colin's mouth trembled. + +"It's all right, Col-Col, you're coming." Jerrold held out his hand. + +"Well," said Eliot, "if he crumples up _you_ can carry him." + +"I can," said Jerrold. + +"So can I," said Anne. + +"Nobody," said Colin "shall carry me. I can walk." + +Eliot went on grumbling while Colin trotted happily beside them. "You're +a fearful ass, Jerrold. You're simple ruining that kid. He thinks he can +come butting into everything. Here's the whole afternoon spoiled for all +three of us. He can't walk. You'll see he'll drop out in the first +mile." + +"I shan't, Jerrold." + +And he didn't. He struggled on down the fields to Upper Speed and along +the river-meadows to Lower Speed and Hayes Mill, and from Hayes Mill to +High Slaughter. It was when they started to walk back that his legs +betrayed him, slackening first, then running, because running was easier +than walking, for a change. Then dragging. Then being dragged between +Anne and Jerrold (for he refused to be carried). Then staggering, +stumbling, stopping dead; his child's mouth drooping. + +Then Jerrold carried him on his back with his hands clasped under +Colin's soft hips. Colin's body slipped every minute and had to be +jerked up again; and when it slipped his arms tightened round Jerrold's +neck, strangling him. + +At last Jerrold, too, staggered and stumbled and stopped dead. + +"I'll take him," said Eliot. He forbore, nobly, to say "I told you so." + +And by turns they carried him, from the valley of the Windlode to the +valley of the Speed, past Hayes Mill, through Lower Speed, Upper Speed, +and up the fields to Wyck Manor. Then up the stairs to the schoolroom, +pursued by their mother's cries. + +"Oh Col-Col, my little Col-Col! What have you done to him, Eliot?" + +Eliot bore it like a lamb. + +Only after they had left Colin in the schoolroom, he turned on Jerrold. + +"Some day," he said, "Col-Col will be a perfect nuisance. Then you and +Anne'll have to pay for it." + +"Why me and Anne?" + +"Because you'll both be fools enough to keep on giving in to him." + +"I suppose," said Jerrold bitterly, "you think you're clever." + +Adeline came out and overheard him and made a scene in the gallery +before Pinkney, the footman, who was bringing in the schoolroom tea. She +said Eliot was clever enough and old enough to know better. They were +all old enough. And Jerrold said it was his fault, not Eliot's, and Anne +said it was hers, too. And Adeline declared that it was all their faults +and she would have to speak to their father. She kept it up long after +Eliot and Jerrold had retreated to the bathroom. If it had been anybody +but her little Col-Col. She wouldn't _have_ him dragged about the +country till he dropped. + +She added that Col-Col was her favourite. + + +xi + +It was the last week of the holidays. Rain had come with the west wind. +The hills were drawn back behind thick sheets of glassy rain. Shining +spears of rain dashed themselves against the west windows. Jets of rain +rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace. Rain ran before the +wind in a silver scud along the flagged path under the south front. + +The wind made hard, thudding noises as if it pounded invisible bodies in +the air. It screamed high above the drumming and hissing of the rain. + +It excited the children. + +From three o'clock till tea-time the sponge fight stormed up and down +the passages. The house was filled with the sound of thudding feet and +shrill laughter. + +Adeline lay on the sofa in the library. Eliot was with her there. + +She was amused, but a little plaintive when they rushed in to her. + +"It's perfectly awful the noise you children are making. I'm tired out +with it." + +Jerrold flung himself on her. "Tired? What must _we_ be?" + +But he wasn't tired. His madness still worked in him. It sought some +supreme expression. + +"What can we play at next?" said Anne. + +"What can we play at next?" said Colin. + +"Something quiet, for goodness sake," said his mother. + +They were very quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the +booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent +approach. The sponge caught him--with a delightful, squelching +flump--full and fair on the top of his sleek head. + +Anne shrieked with delight. "Oh Jerry, did you _hear_ him say 'Damn'?" + +They rushed back to the library to tell Eliot. But Eliot couldn't see +that it was funny. He said it was a rotten thing to do. + +"When he's a servant and can't do anything to _us_." + +"I never thought of that," said Jerrold. (It _was_ pretty rotten.) ... +"I could ask him to bowl to me and let him get me out." + +"He'd do that in any case." + +"Still--I'll have _asked_ him." + +But it seemed that Pinkney was in no mood to think of cricket, and they +had to be content with begging his pardon, which he gave, as he said, +"freely." Yet it struck them that he looked sadder than a booby-trap +should have made him. + +It was just before bed-time that Eliot told them the awful thing. + +"I suppose you know," he said, "that Pinkney's mother's dying?" + +"I didn't," said Jerrold. "But I might have known. I notice that when +you're excited, _really_ excited, something awful's bound to happen.... +Don't cry, Anne. It was beastly of us, but we didn't know." + +"No. It's no use crying," said Eliot. "You can't do anything." + +"That's it," Anne sobbed. "If we only could. If we could go to him and +tell him we wouldn't have done it if we'd known." + +"You jolly well can't. It would only bother the poor chap. Besides, it +was Jerry did it. Not you." + +"It _was_ me. I filled the sponge. We did it together." + +What they had done was beastly--setting booby-traps for Pinkney, and +laughing at him when his mother was dying--but they had done it +together. The pain of her sin had sweetness in it since she shared it +with Jerry. Jerry's arm was round her as she went upstairs to bed, +crying. They sat together on her bed, holding each other's hands; they +faced it together. + +"You'd never have done it, Anne, if I hadn't made you." + +"I wouldn't mind so much if we hadn't laughed at him." + +"Well, we couldn't help _that_. And it wasn't as if we'd known." + +"If only we could tell him--" + +"We can't. He'd hate us to go talking to him about his mother." + +"He'd hate us." + +Then Anne had an idea. They couldn't talk to Pinkney but they could +write. That wouldn't hurt him. Jerry fetched a pencil and paper from the +schoolroom; and Anne wrote. + + Dear Pinkney: We didn't know. We wouldn't have done it if we'd + known. We are awfully sorry. + + Yours truly, + + ANNE SEVERN. + + P.S. You aren't to answer this. + + JERROLD FIELDING. + +Half an hour later Jerrold knocked at her door. + +"Anne--are you in bed?" + +She got up and stood with him at the door in her innocent nightgown. + +"It's all right," he said. "I've seen Pinkney. He says we aren't to +worry. He knew we wouldn't have done it if we'd known." + +"Was he crying?" + +"No. Laughing.... All the same, it'll be a lesson to us," he said. + + +xii + +"Where's Jerrold?" + +Robert Fielding called from the dogcart that waited by the porch. Eliot +sat beside him, very stiff and straight, painfully aware of his mother +who stood on the flagged path below, and made yearning faces at him, +doing her best, at this last moment, to destroy his morale. Colin sat +behind him by Jerrold's place, tearful but excited. He was to go with +them to the station. Eliot tried hard to look as if he didn't care; and, +as his mother said, he succeeded beautifully. + +It was the end of the holidays. + +"Adeline, you might see where Jerrold is." + +She went into the house and saw Anne and Jerrold coming slowly down the +stairs together from the gallery. At the turn they stopped and looked at +each other, and suddenly he had her in his arms. They kissed, with +close, quick kisses and then stood apart, listening. + +Adeline went back. "The monkey," she thought; "and I who told her she +didn't know how to do it." + +Jerrold ran out, very red in the face and defiant. He gave himself to +his mother's large embrace, broke from it, and climbed into the dogcart. +The mare bounded forward, Jerrold and Eliot raised their hats, shouted +and were gone. + +Adeline watched while the long lines of the beech-trees narrowed on +them, till the dogcart swung out between the ball-topped pillars of the +Park gates. + +Last time their going had been nothing to her. Today she could hardly +bear it. She wondered why. + +She turned and found little Anne standing beside her. They moved +suddenly apart. Each had seen the other's tears. + + +xiii + +Outside Colin's window the tree rocked in the wind. A branch brushed +backwards and forwards, it tapped on the pane. Its black shadow shook on +the grey, moonlit wall. + +Jerrold's empty bed showed white and dreadful in the moonlight, covered +with a sheet. Colin was frightened. + +A narrow passage divided his room from Anne's. The doors stood open. He +called "Anne! Anne!" + +A light thud on the floor of Anne's room, then the soft padding of naked +feet, and Anne stood beside him in her white nightgown. Her hair rose in +a black ruff round her head, her eyes were very black in the sharp +whiteness of her face. + +"Are you frightened, Colin?" + +"No. I'm not exactly frightened, but I think there's something there." + +"It's nothing. Only the tree." + +"I mean--in Jerry's bed." + +"Oh no, Colin." + +"Dare you," he said, "sit on it?" + +"Of course I dare. _Now_ you see. _Now_ you won't be frightened." + +"You know," Colin said, "I don't mind a bit when Jerrold's there. The +ghosts never come then, because he frightens them away." + +The clock struck ten. They counted the strokes. Anne still sat on +Jerrold's bed with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms clasped +round them. + +"I'll tell you a secret," Colin said. "Only you mustn't tell." + +"I won't." + +"Really and truly?" + +"Really and truly." + +"I think Jerrold's the wonderfullest person in the whole world. When I +grow up I'm going to be like him." + +"You couldn't be." + +"Not now. But when I'm grown-up, I say." + +"You couldn't be. Not even then. Jerrold can't sing and he can't play." + +"I don't care." + +"But you mustn't do what he can't if you want to be like him." + +"When I'm singing and playing I shall pretend I'm not." + +"You needn't. You won't ever be him." + +"I--shall." + +"Col-Col, I don't want you to be like him. I don't want anybody else to +be like Jerrold in the whole world." + +"But," said Colin, "I shall be like him." + + +xiv + +Every night Adeline still came to see Anne in bed. The little thing had +left off pretending to be asleep. She lay with eyes wide open, yielding +sweetly to the embrace. + +To-night her eyelids lay shut, slack on her eyes, and Adeline thought +"She's really asleep, the little lamb. Better not touch her." + +She was going away when a sound stopped her. A sound of sobbing. + +"Anne--Anne--are you crying?" + +A tremulous drawing-in of breath, a shaking under the bed-clothes. On +Anne's white cheek the black eyelashes were parted and pointed with her +tears. She had been crying a long time. + +Adeline knelt down, her face against Anne's face. + +"What is it darling? Tell me." + +Anne shivered. + +"Oh Anne, I wish you loved me. You don't, ducky, a little bit." + +"I do. I do. Really and truly." + +"Then give me a kiss. The proper kind." + +Anne gave her the tight, deep kiss that was the proper kind. + +"Now--tell me what it is." She knew by Anne's surrender that, this time, +it was not her mother. + +"I don't know." + +"You _do_ know. Is it Jerry? Do you want Jerry?" + +At the name Anne's crying broke out again, savage, violent. + +Adeline held her close and let the storm beat itself out against her +heart. + +"You can't want him more than I do, little Anne." + +"You'll have him when he comes back. And I shan't. I shall be gone." + +"You'll come again, darling. You'll come again." + + + +II + + +ADOLESCENTS + +i + +For the next two years Anne came again and again, staying four months at +Wyck and four months in London with Grandmamma Severn and Aunt Emily, +and four months with Grandpapa Everitt at the Essex Farm. + +When she was twelve they sent her to school in Switzerland for three +years. Then back to Wyck, after eight months of London and Essex in +between. + +Only the times at Wyck counted for Anne. Her calendar showed them clear +with all their incidents recorded; thick black lines blotted out the +other days, as she told them off, one by one. Three years and eight +months were scored through in this manner. + +Anne at fifteen was a tall girl with long hair tied in a big black bow +at the cape of her neck. Her vague nose had settled into the +forward-raking line that made her the dark likeness of her father. Her +body was slender but solid; the strong white neck carried her head high +with the poise of a runner. She looked at least seventeen in her +clean-cut coat and skirt. Probably she wouldn't look much older for +another fifteen years. + +Robert Fielding stared with incredulity at this figure which had pursued +him down the platform at Wyck and now seized him by the arm. + +"Is it--is it Anne?" + +"Of course it is. Why, didn't you expect me?" + +"I think I expected something smaller and rather less grown-up." + +"I'm not grown-up. I'm the same as ever." + +"Well, you're not little Anne any more." + +She squeezed his arm, hanging on it in her old loving way. "No. But I'm +still me. And I'd have known _you_ anywhere." + +"What? With my grey hair?" + +"I love your grey hair." + +It made him handsome, more lovable than ever. Anne loved it as she loved +his face, tanned and tightened by sun and wind, the long hard-drawn +lines, the thin, kind mouth, the clear, greenish brown eyes, quick and +kind. + +Colin stood by the dogcart in the station yard. Colin was changed. He +was no longer the excited child who came rushing to you. He stood for +you to come to him, serious and shy. His child's face was passing from +prettiness to a fine, sombre beauty. + +"What's happened to Col-Col? He's all different?" + +"Is he? Wait," Uncle Robert said, "till you've seen Jerrold." + +"Oh, is Jerrold going to be different, too?" + +"I'm afraid he'll _look_ a little different." + +"I don't care," she said. "He'll _be_ him." + +She wanted to come back and find everybody and everything the same, +looking exactly as she had left them. What they had once been for her +they must always be. + +They drove slowly up Wyck Hill. The tree-tops meeting overhead made a +green tunnel. You came out suddenly into the sunlight at the top. The +road was the same. They passed by the Unicorn Inn and the Post Office, +through the narrow crooked street with the church and churchyard at the +turn; and so into the grey and yellow Market Square with the two tall +elms standing up on the little green in the corner. They passed the +Queen's Head; the powder-blue sign hung out from the yellow front the +same as ever. Next came the fountain and the four forked roads by the +signpost, then the dip of the hill to the left and the grey ball-topped +stone pillars of the Park gates on the right. + +At the end of the beech avenue she saw the house; the three big, +sharp-pointed gables of the front: the little gable underneath in the +middle, jutting out over the porch. That was the bay of Aunt Adeline's +bed-room. She used to lean out of the lattice windows and call to the +children in the garden. The house was the same. + +So were the green terraces and the wide, flat-topped yew walls, and the +great peacocks carved out of the yew; and beyond them the lawn, flowing +out under banks of clipped yew down to the goldfish pond. They were +things that she had seen again and again in sleep and memory; things +that had made her heart ache thinking of them; that took her back and +back, and wouldn't let her be. She had only to leave off what she was +doing and she saw them; they swam before her eyes, covering the Swiss +mountains, the flat Essex fields, the high white London houses. They +waited for her at the waking end of dreams. + +She had found them again. + +A gap in the green walls led into the flower garden, and there, down the +path between tall rows of phlox and larkspurs and anchusa, of blue +heaped on blue, Aunt Adeline came holding up a tall bunch of flowers, +blue on her white gown, blue on her own milk-white and blue. She came, +looking like a beautiful girl; the same, the same; Anne had seen her in +dreams, walking like that, tall among the tall flowers. + +She never hurried to meet you; hurrying would have spoiled the beauty of +her movement; she came slowly, absent-mindedly, stopping now and then to +pluck yet another of the blue spires. Robert stood still in the path to +watch her. She was smiling a long way off, intensely aware of him. + +"Is _that_ Anne?" she said. + +"Yes, Auntie, _really_ Anne." + +"Well, you _are_ a big girl, aren't you?" + +She kissed her three times and smiled, looking away again over her +flower-beds. That was the difference between Aunt Adeline and Uncle +Robert. His eyes made you important; they held you all the time he +talked to you; when he smiled, it was for you altogether and not for +himself at all. Her eyes never looked at you long; her smile wandered, +it was half for you and half for herself, for something she was thinking +of that wasn't you. + +"What have you done with your father?" she said. + +"I was to tell you. Daddy's ever so sorry; but he can't come till +to-morrow. A horrid man kept him on business." + +"Oh?" A little crisping wave went over Aunt Adeline's face, a wave of +vexation. Anne saw it. + +"He is _really_ sorry. You should have heard him damning and cursing." + +They laughed. Adeline was appeased. She took her husband's arm and drew +him to herself. Something warm and secret seemed to pass between them. + +Anne said to herself: "That's how people look--" without finishing her +thought. + +Lest she should feel shut out he turned to her. + +"Well, are you glad to be back again, Anne?" he said. + +"Glad? I'm never glad to be anywhere else. I've been counting the weeks +and the days and the minutes." + +"The minutes?" + +"Yes. In the train." + +They had come up on to the flagged terrace. Anne looked round her. + +"Where's Jerrold?" she said. + +And they laughed again. "There's no doubt," said Uncle Robert, "about it +being the same Anne." + + +ii + +A day passed. John Severn had come. He was to stay with the Fieldings +for the last weeks of his leave. He had followed Adeline from the hot +terrace to the cool library. When she wanted the sun again he would +follow her out. + +Robert and Colin were down at the Manor Farm. Eliot was in the +schoolroom, reading. + +Jerrold and Anne sat together on the grass under the beech trees, alone. + +They had got over the shock of the first encounter, when they met at +arms' length, not kissing, but each remembering, shyly, that they used +to kiss. If they had not got over the "difference," the change of Anne +from a child to a big girl, of Jerrold from a big boy to a man's height +and a man's voice, it was because, in some obscure way, that difference +fascinated them. The great thing was that underneath it they were both, +as Anne said, "the same." + +"I don't know what I'd have done, Jerrold, if you hadn't been." + +"You might have known I would be." + +"I did know." + +"I say, what a thundering lot of hair you've got. I like it." + +"Do you like what Auntie Adeline calls my new nose?" + +"Awfully." + +She meditated. "Jerrold, do you remember Benjy?" + +"Rather." + +"Dear Benjy... Do you know, I can hardly believe I'm here. I never +thought I should come again." + +"But why shouldn't you?" + +"I don't know. Only I think every time something'll happen to prevent +me. I'm afraid of being ill or dying before I can get away. And they +might send me anywhere any day. It's awful to be so uncertain." + +"Don't think about it. You're here now." + +"Oh Jerrold, supposing it was the last time--" + +"It isn't the last time. Don't spoil it by thinking." + +"_You'd_ think if you were me." + +"I say--you don't mean they're not decent to you?" + +"Who, Grandmamma and Grandpapa? They're perfect darlings. So's Aunt +Emily. But they're awfully old and they can't play at anything, except +bridge. And it isn't the same thing at all. Besides, I don't--" + +She paused. It wasn't kind to the poor things to say "I don't love them +the same." + +"Do you like us so awfully, then?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm glad you like us." + +They were silent. + +Up and down the flagged terrace above them Aunt Adeline and Uncle Robert +walked together. The sound of his voice came to them, low and troubled. + +Anne listened, "Is anything wrong?" she said. "They've been like that +for ages." + +"Daddy's bothered about Eliot." + +"Eliot?" + +"About his wanting to be a doctor." + +"Is Auntie Adeline bothered?" + +"No. She would be if she knew. But she doesn't think it'll happen. She +never thinks anything will happen that she doesn't like. But it will. +They can't keep him off it. He's been doing medicine at Cambridge +because they won't let him go and do it at Bart's. It's just come out +that he's been at it all the time. Working like blazes." + +"Why shouldn't he be a doctor if he likes?" + +"Because he's the eldest son. It wouldn't matter so much if it was only +Colin or me. But Eliot ought to have the estate. And he says he won't +have it. He doesn't want it. He says Daddy's got to leave it to me. +That's what's worrying the dear old thing. He thinks it wouldn't be +fair." + +"Who to?" + +Jerrold laughed. "Why, to _Eliot_. He's got it into his dear old head +that he _ought_ to have it. He can't see that Eliot knows his own +business best. It _would_ be most awfully in his way... It's pretty +beastly for me, too. I don't like taking it when I know Daddy wants +Eliot to have it. That's to say, he _doesn't_ want; he'd like me to have +it, because I'd take care of it. But that makes him all the more stuck +on Eliot, because he thinks it's the right thing. I don't like having it +in any case." + +"Why ever not?" + +"Well, I _can_ only have it if Daddy dies, and I'd rather die myself +first." + +"That's how I feel about my farm." + +"Beastly, isn't it? Still, I'm not worrying. Daddy's frightfully +healthy, thank Heaven. He'll live to be eighty at the very least. Why--I +should be fifty." + +"_You're_ all right," said Anne. "But it's awful for me. Grandpapa might +die any day. He's seventy-five _now_. It'll be ages before you're +fifty." + +"And I may never be it. India may polish me off long before that." He +laughed his happy laugh. The idea of his own death seemed to Jerrold +irresistibly funny. + +"_India_?" + +He laughed again at her dismay. + +"Rather. I'm going in for the Indian Civil." + +"Oh Jerrold--you'll be away years and years, nearly all the time, like +Daddy, and I shan't ever see you." + +"I shan't start for ages. Not for five years. Lots of time to see each +other in." + +"Lots of time for _not_ seeing each other ever again." + +She sat staring mournfully, seeing before her the agony of separation. + +"Nonsense," said Jerrold. "Why on earth shouldn't you come out to India +too? I say, that would be a lark, wouldn't it? You would come, wouldn't +you?" + +"Like a shot," said Anne. + +"Would you give up your farm to come?" + +"I'd give up anything." + +"_That's_ all right. Let's go and play tennis." + +They played for two hours straight on end, laughing and shouting. +Adeline, intensely bored by Eliot and his absurd affairs, came down the +lawn to look at them. She loved their laughter. It was good to have Anne +there. Anne was so happy. + +John Severn came to her. + +"Did you ever see anything happier than that absurd boy?" she said. "Why +can't Eliot be jolly and contented, too, like Jerrold?" + +"Don't you think the chief reason may be that he _isn't_ Jerrold?" + +"Jerrold's adorable. He's never given me a day's trouble since he was +born." + +"No. It's other women he'll give trouble to," said John, "before he's +done." + + +iii + +Colin was playing. All afternoon he had been practising with fury; first +scales, then exercises. Then a pause; and now, his fingers slipped into +the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata. + +Secretly, mysteriously he began; then broke, sharply, impatiently, +crescendo, as the passion of the music mounted up and up. And now as it +settled into its rhythm his hands ran smoothly and joyously along. + +The west window of the drawing-room was open to the terrace. Eliot and +Anne sat out there and listened. + +"He's wonderful, isn't he?" she said. + +Eliot shook his head. "Not so wonderful as he was. Not half so wonderful +as he ought to be. He'll never be good enough for a professional. He +knows he won't." + +"What's happened?" + +"Nothing. That's just it. Nothing ever will happen. He's stuck. It's the +same with his singing. He'll never be any good if he can't go away and +study somewhere. If it isn't Berlin or Leipzig it ought to be London. +But father can't live there and the mater won't go anywhere without him. +So poor Col-Col's got to stick here doing nothing, with the same rotten +old masters telling him things he knew years ago.... It'll be worse next +term when he goes to Cheltenham. He won't be able to practice, and +nobody'll care a damn.... Not that that would matter if he cared +himself." + +Colin was playing the slow movement now, the grave, pure passion, +pressed out from the solemn bass, throbbed, tense with restraint. + +"Oh Eliot, he _does_ care." + +"In a way. Not enough to keep on at it. You've got to slog like blazes, +if you want to get on." + +"Jerrold won't, ever, then." + +"Oh yes he will. _He'll_ get on all right, because he _doesn't_ care; +because work comes so jolly easy to him. He hasn't got to break his +heart over it.... The trouble with Colin is that he cares, awfully, for +such a lot of other things. Us, for instance. He'll leave off in the +middle of a movement if he hears Jerrold yelling for him. He ought to be +able to chuck us all; we're all of us in his way. He ought to hate us. +He ought to hate Jerrold worst of all." + +Adeline and John Severn came round the corner of the terrace. + +"What's all this about hating?" he said. + +"What do you mean, Eliot?" said she. + +Eliot raised himself wearily. "I mean," he said, "you'll never be any +good at anything if you're not prepared to commit a crime for it." + +"I know what I'd commit a crime for," said Anne. "But I shan't tell." + +"You needn't. _You'd_ do it for anybody you were gone on." + +"Well, I would. I'd tell any old lie to make them happy. I'd steal for +them if they were hungry. I'd kill anybody who hurt them." + +"I believe you would," said Eliot. + +"We know who Anne would commit her crimes for." + +"We don't. We don't know anything she doesn't want us to," said Eliot, +shielding her from his mother's mischief. + +"That's right, Eliot, stick up for her," said John. He knew what she was +thinking of. "Would Jerrold commit a crime?" he said. + +"Sooner than any of us. But not for the Indian Civil. He'd rob, butcher, +lie himself black in the face for anything he really cared for." + +"He would for Colin," said Anne. + +"Rob? Butcher and lie?" Her father meditated. + +"It sounds like Jerrold, doesn't it?" said Adeline. "Absurd children. +Thank goodness they don't any of them know what they're talking +about.... And here's tea." + +Indoors the music stopped suddenly and Colin came out, ready. + +"What's Jerrold doing?" he said. + +It was, as Eliot remarked, a positive obsession. + + +iv + +Tea was over. Adeline and Anne sat out together on the terrace. The +others had gone. Adeline looked at her watch. + +"What time is it?" said Anne. + +"Twenty past five." + +Anne started up. "And I'm going to ride with Jerrold at half-past." + +"Are you? I thought you were going to stay with me." + +Anne turned. "Do you want me to, Auntie?" + +"What do you think?" + +"If you really want me to, of _course_ I'll stay. Jerry won't mind." + +"You darling... And I used to think you were never going to like me. Do +you remember?" + +"I remember I was a perfect little beast to you." + +"You were. But you do love me a bit now, don't you?" + +"What do you _think_?" + +Anne leaned over her, covering her, supporting herself by the arms of +the garden chair. She brought her face close down, not kissing her, but +looking into her eyes and smiling, teasing in her turn. + +"You love me," said Adeline; "but you'd cut me into little bits if it +would please Jerrold." + +Anne drew back suddenly, straightened herself and turned away. + +"Run off, you monkey, or you'll keep him waiting. I don't want you ... +Wait ... Where's Uncle Robert?" + +"Down at the farm." + +"Bother his old farm. Well--you might ask that father of yours to come +and amuse me." + +"I'll go and get him now. Are you sure you don't want me?" + +"Quite sure, you funny thing." + +Anne ran, to make up for lost time. + + +v + +The sun had come round on to the terrace. Adeline rose from her chair. +John Severn rose, stiffly. + +She had made him go with her to the goldfish pond, made him walk round +the garden, listening to him and not listening, detaching herself +wilfully at every turn, to gather more and more of her blue flowers; +made him come into the drawing-room and look on while she arranged them +exquisitely in the tall Chinese jars. She had brought him out again to +sit on the terrace in the sun; and now, in her restlessness, she was up +again and calling to him to follow. + +"It's baking here. Shall we go into the library?" + +"If you like." He sighed as he said it. + +As long as they stayed out of doors he felt safe and peaceful; but he +was afraid of the library. Once there, shut in with her in that room +which she was consecrating to their communion, heaven only knew what +sort of fool he might make of himself. Last time it was only the sudden +entrance of Robert that had prevented some such manifestation. And +to-day, her smile and her attentive attitude told him that she expected +him to be a fool, that she looked to his folly for her entertainment. + +He had followed her like a dog; and as if he had been a dog her hand +patted a place on the couch beside her. And because he was a fool and +foredoomed he took it. + +There was a silence. Then suddenly he made up his mind. + +"Adeline, I'm very sorry, but I find I've got to go to-morrow." + +"Go? Up to town?" + +"Yes." + +"But--you're coming back again." + +"I'm--afraid--not." + +"My dear John, you haven't been here a week. I thought you were going to +stay with us till your leave was up." + +"So did I. But I find I can't." + +"Whyever not?" + +"Oh--there are all sorts of things to be seen to." + +"Nonsense, what do you suppose Robert will say to you, running off like +this?" + +"Robert will understand." + +"It's more than I do." + +"You can see, can't you, that I'm going because I must, not because I +want to." + +"Well, I think it's horrid of you. I shall miss you frightfully." + +"Yes, you were good enough to say I amused you." + +"You're not amusing me now, my dear ... Are you going to take Anne away +from me too?" + +"Not if you'd like to keep her." + +"Of course I'd like to keep her." + +He paused, brooding, wrenching one of his lean hands with the other. + +"There's one thing I must ask you--" + +"Ask, ask, then." + +"I told you Anne would care for you if you gave her time. She does care +for you." + +"Yes. Odd as it may seem, I really believe she does." + +"Well--don't let her be hurt by it." + +"Hurt? Who's going to hurt her?" + +"You, if you let her throw herself away on you when you don't want her." + +"Have I behaved as if I didn't want her?" + +"You've behaved like an angel. All the same, you frighten me a little. +You've a terrible fascination for the child. Don't use it too much. Let +her feelings alone. Don't work on them for the fun of seeing what she'll +do next. If she tries to break away don't bring her back. Don't jerk her +on the chain. Don't--amuse yourself with Anne." + +"So that's how you think of me?" + +"Oh, you know how I think." + +"Do I? Have I ever known? You say the cruellest things. Is there +anything else I'm not to do to her?" + +"Yes. For God's sake don't tease her about Jerrold." + +"My dear John, you talk as if it was serious. I assure you Jerrold isn't +thinking about Anne." + +"And Anne isn't 'thinking' about Jerrold. They don't think, poor dears. +They don't know what's happening to them. None of us know what's +happening to us till it happens. Then it's too late." + +"Well, I'll promise not to do any of these awful things if you'll tell +me, honestly, why you're going." + +He stared at her. + +"Tell you? You know why. I am going for _the same reason_ that I came. +How can you possibly ask me to stay?" + +"Of course, if you feel like that about it--" + +"You'll say I'd no business to come if I feel like that. But I knew I +wasn't hurting anybody but myself. I knew _you_ were safe. There's never +been anybody but Robert." + +"Never. Never for a minute." + +"I tell you I know that. I always have known it. And I understand it. +What I can't understand is why, when that's that, you make it so hard +for me." + +"Do I make it hard for you?" + +"Damnably." + +"You poor thing. But you'll get over it." + +"I'm not young enough to get over it. Does it look like getting over it? +It's been going on for twenty-two years." + +"Oh come, not all the time, John." + +"Pretty nearly. On and off." + +"More off than on, I think." + +"What does that matter when it's 'on' now? Anyhow I've got to go." + +"Go, if you must. Do the best for yourself, my dear. Only don't say I +made you." + +"I'm not saying anything." + +"Well--I'm sorry." + +All the same her smile declared her profound and triumphant satisfaction +with herself. It remained with her after he had gone. She would rather +he had stayed, following her about, waiting for her, ready to her call, +amusing her; but his going was the finer tribute to her power: the +finest, perhaps, that he could have well paid. She hadn't been prepared +for such a complete surrender. + + +vi + +Something had happened to Eliot. He sulked. Indoors and out, working and +playing, at meal-times and bed-time he sulked. Jerrold said of him that +he sulked in his sleep. + +Two things made his behaviour inexplicable. To begin with, it was +uncalled for. Robert Fielding, urged by John Severn in a last interview, +had given in all along the line. Not only had Eliot leave to stick to +his medicine (which he would have done in any case), but he was to go to +Bart's to work for his doctor's degree when his three years at Cambridge +were ended. His father had made a new will, leaving the estate to +Jerrold and securing to the eldest son an income almost large enough to +make up for the loss. Eliot, whose ultimate aim was research work, now +saw all the ways before him cleared. He had no longer anything to sulk +for. + +Still more mysteriously, his sulking appeared to be related to Anne. He +had left off going for walks alone with her in the fields and woods; he +didn't show her things under his microscope any more. If she leaned over +his shoulder he writhed himself away; if his hand blundered against hers +he drew it back as if her touch burnt him. More often than not he would +go out of the room if she came into it. Yet as long as she was there he +couldn't keep his eyes off her. She would be sitting still, reading, +when she would be aware, again and again, of Eliot's eyes, lifted from +his book to fasten on her. She could feel them following her when she +walked away. + +One wet day in August they were alone together in the schoolroom, +reading. Suddenly Anne felt his eyes on her. Their look was intent, +penetrating, disturbing; it burned at her under his jutting, sombre +eyebrows. + +"Is there anything funny about me?" she said. + +"Funny? No. Why?" + +"Because you keep on looking at me." + +"I didn't know I was looking at you." + +"Well, you were. You're always doing it. And I can't think why." + +"It isn't because I want to." + +He held his book up so that it hid his face. + +"Then don't do it," she said. "You needn't." + +"I shan't," he snarled, savagely, behind his screen. + +But he did it again and again, as if for the life of him he couldn't +help it. There was something about it mysterious and exciting. It made +Anne want to look at Eliot when he wasn't looking at her. + +She liked his blunt, clever face, the half-ugly likeness of his father's +with its jutting eyebrows and jutting chin, its fine grave mouth and +greenish-brown eyes; mouth and eyes that had once been so kind and were +now so queer. Eliot's face made her keep on wondering what it was doing. +She _had_ to look at it. + +One day, when she was looking, their eyes met. She had just time to see +that his mouth had softened as if he were pleased to find her looking at +him. And his eyes were different; not cross, but dark now and unhappy; +they made her feel as if she had hurt him. + +They were in the library. Uncle Robert was there, sitting in his chair +behind them, at the other end of the long room. She had forgotten Uncle +Robert. + +"Oh, Eliot," she said, "have I done anything?" + +"Not that I know of." His face stiffened. + +"You look as if I had. Have I?" + +"Don't talk such putrid rot. As if I cared what you did. Can't you leave +me alone?" + +And he jumped up and left the room. + +And there was Uncle Robert in his chair, watching her, looking kind and +sorry. + +"What's the matter with him?" she said. "Why is he so cross?" + +"You mustn't mind. He doesn't mean it." + +"No, but it's so funny of him. He's only cross with me; and I haven't +done anything." + +"It isn't that." + +"What is it, then? I believe he hates me." + +"No. He doesn't hate you, Anne. He's going through a bad time, that's +all. He can't help being cross." + +"Why can't he? He's got everything he wants." + +"Has he?" + +Uncle Robert was smiling. And this time his smile was for himself. She +didn't understand it. + + +vii + +Anne was going away. She said she supposed now that Eliot would be +happy. + +Grandmamma Severn thought she had been long enough running loose with +those Fielding boys. Grandpapa Everitt agreed with her and they decided +that in September Anne should go to the big girls' college in +Cheltenham. Grandmamma and Aunt Emily had left London and taken a house +in Cheltenham and Anne was to live with them there. + +Colin and she were going in the same week, Colin to his college and Anne +to hers. + +They were discussing this prospect. Colin and Jerrold and Anne in +Colin's room. It was a chilly day in September and Colin was in bed +surrounded by hot water bottles. He had tried to follow Jerrold in his +big jump across the river and had fallen in. He was not ill, but he +hoped he would be, for then he couldn't go back to Cheltenham next week. + +"If it wasn't for the hot water bottles," he said, "I _might_ get a +chill." + +"I wish I could get one," said Anne. "But I can't get anything. I'm so +beastly strong." + +"It isn't so bad for you. You haven't got to live with the girls. It'll +be perfectly putrid in my house now that Jerrold isn't there." + +"Haven't you _any_ friends, Col-Col?" + +"Yes. There's little Rogers. But even he's pretty rotten after Jerry." + +"He would be." + +"And that old ass Rawly says I'll be better this term without Jerrold. +He kept on gassing about fighting your own battles and standing on your +own feet. You never heard such stinking rot." + +"You're lucky it's Cheltenham," Jerrold said, "and not some other rotten +hole. Dad and I'll go over on half-holidays and take you out. You and +Anne." + +"You'll be at Cambridge." + +"Not till next year. And it isn't as if Anne wasn't there." + +"Grannie and Aunt Emily'll ask you every week. I've made them. It'll be +a bit slow, but they're rather darlings." + +"Have they a piano?" Colin asked. + +"Yes. And they'll let you play on it all the time." + +Colin looked happier. But he didn't get his chill, and when the day came +he had to go. + +Jerrold saw Anne off at Wyck station. + +"You'll look after Col-Col, won't you?" he said. "Write and tell me how +he gets on." + +"I'll write every week." + +Jerrold was thoughtful. + +"After all, there's something in that idea of old Rawlings', that I'm +bad for him. He's got to do without me." + +"So have I." + +"You're different. You'll stand it, if you've got to. Colin won't. And +he doesn't chum up with the other chaps." + +"No. But think of me and all those awful girls--after you and Eliot" +(she had forgotten Eliot's sulkiness) "and Uncle Robert. And Grannie and +Aunt Emily after Auntie Adeline." + +"Well, I'm glad Col-Col'll have you sometimes." + +"So'm I... Oh, Jerrold, here's the beastly train." + +It drew up along the platform. + +Anne stood in her carriage, leaning out of the window to him. + +His hand was on the ledge. They looked at each other without speaking. + +The guard whistled. Carriage doors slammed one after another. The train +moved forward. + +Jerrold ran alongside. "I say, you'll let Col-Col play on that piano?" + +Anne was gone. + + + +III + + +ANNE AND JERROLD + +i + + "'Where have you been all the day, Rendal, my son? + Where have you been all the day, my pretty one?...'" + +Five years had passed. It was August, nineteen ten. + +Anne had come again. She sat out on the terrace with Adeline, while +Colin's song drifted out to them through the open window. + +It was her first day, the first time for three years. Anne's calendar +was blank from nineteen seven to nineteen ten. When she was seventeen +she had left Cheltenham and gone to live with Grandpapa Everitt at the +Essex farm. Grandpapa Everitt wanted her more than Grandmamma Severn, +who had Aunt Emily; so Anne had stayed with him all that time. She had +spent it learning to farm and looking after Grandpapa on his bad days. +For the last year of his life all his days had been bad. Now he was +dead, dead three months ago, and Anne had the farm. She was going to +train for five years under the man who had worked it for Grandpapa; +after that she meant to manage it herself. + +She had been trying to tell Aunt Adeline all about it, but you could see +she wasn't interested. She kept on saying "Yes" and "Oh" and "Really"? +in the wrong places. She never could listen to you for long together, +and this afternoon she was evidently thinking of something else, perhaps +of John Severn, who had been home on leave and gone again without coming +to the Fieldings. + + "'I've been to my sweetheart, mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down...'" + +Mournful, and beautiful, Colin's song came through the windows, and Anne +thought of Jerrold who was not there. He was staying in Yorkshire with +some friends of his, the Durhams. He would be back to-morrow. He would +have got away from the Durhams. + + ..."'make my bed soon...'" + +To-morrow. To-morrow. + +"Who are the Durhams, Auntie?" + +"He's Sir Charles Durham. Something important in the Punjaub. Some high +government official. He'll be useful to Jerrold if he gets a job out +there. They're going back in October. I suppose I shall have to ask. +Maisie Durham before they sail." + +Maisie Durham. Maisie Durham. But to-morrow he would have got away. + + "'What will you leave your lover, Rendal, my son? + What will you leave your lover, my pretty one? + A rope to hang her, mother, + A rope to hang her, mother, make my bed soon, + For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.'" + +"Sing something cheerful, Colin, for Goodness sake," said his mother. +But Colin sang it again. + + "'A rope to hang her'" + +"Bless him, you'd think he'd known all the wicked women that ever were. +My little Col-Col." + +"You like him the best, don't you?" + +"No. Indeed I do not. I like my laughing boy best. You wouldn't catch +Jerry singing a dismal song like that." + +"Darling, you used to say Colin was your favourite." + +"No, my dear. Never. Never. It was always Jerrold. Ever since he was +born. He never cried when he was a baby. Colin was always crying." + +"Poor Col-Col." + +"There you are. Nobody'll ever say, 'Poor Jerrold'. I like happy people, +Anne. In this tiresome world it's people's duty to be happy." + +"If it was, would they be? Don't look at me as if I wasn't." + +"I wasn't thinking of you, ducky... You might tell Pinkney to take _all_ +those tea-things off the terrace and put them _back_ into the lounge." + + +ii + +The beech-trees stood in a half ring at the top of the highest field. +Jerrold had come back. He and Anne sat in the bay of the beeches, +looking out over the hills. + +Curve after curve of many-coloured hills, rolling together, flung off +from each other, an endless undulation. Rounded heads carrying a clump +of trees like a comb; long steep groins packed with tree-tops; raking +necks hog-maned with stiff plantations. Slopes that spread out fan-wise, +opened wide wings. An immense stretching and flattening of arcs up to +the straight blue wall on the horizon. A band of trees stood up there +like a hedge. + +Calm, clean spaces emerging, the bright, sharp-cut pattern of the +fields; squares and fans and pointed triangles, close fitted; emerald +green of the turnips; yellow of the charlock lifted high and clear; red +brown and pink and purple of ploughed land and fallows; red gold of the +wheat and white green of the barley; shimmering in a wash of thin air. + +Where Anne and Jerrold sat, green pastures, bitten smooth by the sheep, +flowed down below them in long ridges like waves. On the right the +bright canary coloured charlock brimmed the field. Its flat, vanilla and +almond scent came to them. + +"What's Yorkshire like?" + +"Not a patch on this place. I can't think what there is about it that +makes you feel so jolly happy." + +"But you'd always be happy, Jerrold, anywhere." + +"Not like that. I mean a queer, uncanny feeling that you sort of can't +make out." + +"I know. I know... There's nothing on earth that gets you like the smell +of charlock." + +Anne tilted up her nose and sniffed delicately. + +"Fancy seeing this country suddenly for the first time," he said. + +"There's such a lot of it. You wouldn't see it properly. It takes ages +just to tell one hill from another." + +He looked at her. She could feel him meditating, considering. + +"I say, I wonder what it would feel like seeing each other for the first +time." + +"Not half so nice as seeing each other now. Why, we shouldn't remember +any of the jolly things we've done: together." + +He had seen Maisie Durham for the first time. She wondered whether that +had made him think of it. + +"No, but the effect might be rather stunning--I mean of seeing _you_." + +"It wouldn't. And you'd be nothing but a big man with a face I rather +liked. I suppose I should like your face. We shouldn't _know_ each +other, Jerrold." + +"No more we should. It would be like not knowing Dad or Mummy or Colin. +A thing you can't conceive." + +"It would be like not knowing anything at all ... Of course, the best +thing would be both." + +"Both?" + +"Knowing each other and not knowing." + +"You can't have it both ways," he said. + +"Oh, can't you! You don't half know me as it is, and I don't half know +you. We might both do anything any day. Things that would make each +other jump." + +"What sort of things?" + +"That's the exciting part of it--we wouldn't know." + +"I believe you _could_, Anne--make me jump." + +"Wait till I get out to India." + +"You're really going?" + +"Really going. Daddy may send for me any day." + +"I may be sent there. Then we'll go out together." + +"Will Maisie Durham be going too?" + +"O Lord no. Not with us. At least I hope not ... Poor little Maisie, I +was a beast to say that." + +"Is she little?" + +"No, rather big. But you think of her as little. Only I don't think of +her." + +They stood up; they stood close; looking at each other, laughing. As he +laughed his eyes took her in, from head to feet, wondering, admiring. + +Anne's face and body had the same forward springing look. In their very +stillness they somehow suggested movement. Her young breasts sprang +forwards, sharp pointed. Her eyes had no sliding corner glances. He was +for ever aware of Anne's face turning on its white neck to look at him +straight and full, her black-brown eyes shining and darkening and +shining under the long black brushes of her eyebrows. Even her nose +expressed movement, a sort of rhythm. It rose in a slender arch, raked +straight forward, dipped delicately and rose again in a delicately +questing tilt. This tilt had the delightful air of catching up and +shortening the curl of her upper lip. The exquisite lower one sprang +forward, sharp and salient from the little dent above her innocent, +rounded chin. Its edge curled slightly forward in a line firm as ivory +and fine as the edge of a flower. As long as he lived he would remember +the way of it. + +And she, she was aware of his body, slender and tense under his white +flannels. It seemed to throb with the power it held in, prisoned in the +smooth, tight muscles. His eyes showed the colour of dark hyacinths, set +in his clear, sun-browned skin. He smiled down at her, and his mouth and +little fawn brown moustache followed the tilted shadow of his nostrils. + +Suddenly her whole body quivered as if his had touched it. And when she +looked at him she had the queer feeling that she saw him for the first +time. Never before like that. Never before. + +But to him she was the same Anne. He knew her face as he knew his +mother's face or Colin's. He knew, he remembered all her ways. + +And this was not what he wanted. He wanted some strange wonder and +excitement; he wanted to find it in Anne and in nobody but Anne, and he +couldn't find it. He wanted to be in love with Anne and he wasn't. She +was too near him, too much a part of him, too well-known, too +well-remembered. She made him restless and impatient, looking, looking +for the strangeness, the mystery he wanted and couldn't find. + +If only he could have seen her suddenly for the first time. + + +iii + +It was extraordinary how happy it made her to be with Aunt Adeline, +walking slowly, slowly, with her round the garden, stretched out beside +her on the terrace, following her abrupt moves from the sun into the +shade and back again; or sitting for hours with her in the big darkened +bedroom when Adeline had one of the bad headaches that attacked her now, +brushing her hair, and putting handkerchiefs soaked in eau-de-cologne on +her hot forehead. + +Extraordinary, because this inactivity did violence to Anne's nature; +besides, Auntie Adeline behaved as if you were uninteresting and +unimportant, not attending to a word you said. Yet her strength lay in +her inconsistency. One minute her arrogance ignored you and the next she +came humbly and begged for your caresses; she was dependent, like a +child, on your affection. Anne thought that pathetic. And there was +always her fascination. That was absolute; above logic and morality, +irrefutable as the sweetness of a flower. Everybody felt it, even the +servants whom she tormented with her incalculable wants. Jerrold and +Colin, even Eliot, now that he was grown-up, felt it. As for Uncle +Robert he was like a young man in the beginning of first love. + +Adeline judged people by their attitude to her. Anne, whether she +listened to her or not, was her own darling. Her husband and John Severn +were adorable, Major Markham of Wyck Wold and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, +who admired her, were perfect dears, Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, who +didn't, was that silly old thing. Resist her and she felt no mean +resentment; you simply dropped out of her scene. Thus her world was +peopled with her adorers. + +Anne couldn't have told you whether she felt the charm on its own +account, or whether the pleasure of being with her was simply part of +the blessed state of being at Wyck-on-the-Hill. Enough that Auntie +Adeline was there where Uncle Robert and Eliot and Colin and Jerrold +were; she belonged to them; she belonged to the house and garden; she +stood with the flowers. + +Anne was walking with her now, gathering roses for the house. The garden +was like a room shut in by the clipped yew walls, and open to the sky. +The sunshine poured into it; the flagged walks were pale with heat. + +Anne's cat, Nicky, was there, the black Persian that Jerrold had given +her last birthday. He sat in the middle of the path, on his haunches, +his forelegs straight and stiff, planted together. His face had a look +of sweet and solemn meditation. + +"Oh Nicky, oh you darling!" she said. + +When she stroked him he got up, arching his back and carrying his tail +in a flourishing curve, like one side of a lyre; he rubbed against her +ankles. A white butterfly flickered among the blue larkspurs; when Nicky +saw it he danced on his hind legs, clapping his forepaws as he tried to +catch it. But the butterfly was too quick for him. Anne picked him up +and he flattened himself against her breast, butting under her chin with +his smooth round head in his loving way. + +And as Adeline wouldn't listen to her Anne talked to the cat. + +"Clever little thing, he sees everything, all the butterflies and the +dicky-birds and the daddy-long-legs. Don't you, my pretty one?" + +"What's the good of talking to the cat?" said Adeline. "He doesn't +understand a word you say." + +"He doesn't understand the words, he says, but he feels the feeling ... +He was the most beautiful of all the pussies, he was, he was." + +"Nonsense. You're throwing yourself away on that absurd animal, for all +the affection you'll get out of him." + +"I shall get out just what I put in. He expects to be talked to." + +"So do I." + +"I've been trying to talk to you all afternoon and you won't listen. And +you don't know how you can hurt Nicky's feelings. He's miserable if I +don't tell him he's a beautiful pussy the minute he comes into my room. +He creeps away under the washstand and broods. We take these darling +things and give them little souls and hearts, and we've no business to +hurt them. And they've such a tiny time to live, too... Look at him, +sitting up to be carried, like a child." + +"Oh wait, my dear, till you _have_ a child. You ridiculous baby." + +"Oh come, Jerrold's every bit as gone on him." + +"You're a ridiculous pair," said Adeline. + +"If Nicky purred round _your_ legs, you'd love him, too," said Anne. + + +iv + +Uncle Robert was not well. He couldn't eat the things he used to eat; he +had to have fish or chicken and milk and beef-tea and Benger's food. +Jerrold said it was only indigestion and he'd be all right in a day or +two. But you could see by the way he walked now that there was something +quite dreadfully wrong. He went slowly, slowly, as if every step tired +him out. + +"Sorry, Jerrold, to be so slow." + +But Jerrold wouldn't see it. + +They had gone down to the Manor Farm, he and Jerrold and Anne. He wanted +to show Jerrold the prize stock and what heifers they could breed from +next year. "I should keep on with the short horns. You can't do better," +he said. + +Then they had gone up the fields to see if the wheat was ready for +cutting yet. And he had kept on telling Jerrold what crops were to be +sown after the wheat, swedes to come first, and vetch after the swedes, +to crowd out the charlock. + +"You'll have to keep the charlock down, Jerrold, or it'll kill the +crops. You'll have the devil of a job." He spoke as though Jerrold had +the land already and he was telling him the things he wanted him to +remember. + +They came back up the steep pasture, very slowly, Uncle Robert leaning +on Jerrold's arm. They sat down to rest under the beech-trees at the +top. They looked at the landscape, the many-coloured hills, rolling +together, flung off from each other, an endless undulation. + +"Beautiful country. Beautiful country," said Uncle Robert as if he had +never seen it before. + +"You should see _my_ farm," Anne said. "It's as flat as a chess-board +and all squeezed up by the horrid town. Grandpapa sold a lot of it for +building. I wish I could sell the rest and buy a farm in the Cotswolds. +Do you ever have farms to sell, Uncle Robert?" + +"Well, not to sell. To let, perhaps, if a tenant goes. You can have the +Barrow Farm when old Sutton dies. He can't last long. But," he went on, +"you'll find it very different farming here." + +"How different?" + +"Well, in some of those fields you'll have to fight the charlock all the +time. And in some the soil's hard. And in some you've got to plough +across the sun because of the slope of the land... Remember, Jerrold, +Anne's to have the Barrow Farm, if she wants it, when Sutton dies." + +Jerrold laughed. "My dear father, I shall be in India." + +"I'll remind you, Uncle Robert." + +Uncle Robert smiled. "I'll tell Barker to remember," he said. Barker was +his agent. + +It was as if he were thinking that when Sutton died he might not be +there. And he had said that Sutton wouldn't last long. Anne looked at +Jerrold. But Jerrold's face was happy. He didn't see it. + +They left Uncle Robert in the library, drinking hot water for tea. + +"Jerrold," Anne said, "I'm sure Uncle Robert's ill." + +"Oh no. It's only indigestion. He'll be as right as rain in a day or +two." + + +V + +Anne's cat Nicky was dying. + +Jerrold struggled with his sleep, pushing it back and back before him, +trying to remember. + +There was something; something that had hung over him the night before. +He had been afraid to wake and find it there. Something--. + +Now he remembered. + +Nicky was dying and Anne was unhappy. That was what it was; that was +what he had hated to wake to, Anne's unhappiness and the little cat. + +There was nothing else. Nothing wrong with Daddy--only indigestion. He +had had it before. + +The room was still dark, but the leaded squares of the window lattices +barred a sky pale with dawn. In her room across the passage Anne would +be sitting up with Nicky. He remembered now that he had to get up early +to make her some tea. + +He lit a candle and went to her door to see if she were still awake. Her +voice answered his gentle tapping, "Who's there?" + +"Me. Jerrold. May I come in?" + +"Yes. But don't bring the light in. He's sleeping." + +He put out the candle and made his way to her. Against the window panes +he could see the outline of her body sitting upright in a chair. She +glimmered there in her white wrapper and he made out something black +stretched straight and still in her lap. He sat down in the window-seat +and watched. + +The room was mysterious, full of dusk air that thinned as the dawn +stirred in it palpably, waking first Anne's white bed, a strip of white +cornice and a sheet of watery looking-glass. Nicky's saucer of milk +gleamed white on the dark floor at Anne's feet. The pale ceiling +lightened; and with a sliding shimmer of polished curves the furniture +rose up from the walls. Presently it stood clear, wine-coloured, shining +in the strange, pure light. + +And in the strange, pure light he saw Anne, in her white wrapper with +the great rope of her black hair, plaited, hanging down her back. The +little black cat lay in her white lap, supported by her arm. + +She smiled at Jerrold strangely. She spoke and her voice was low and +strange. + +"He's asleep, Jerry. He kept on looking at me and mewing. Then he tried +to climb into my lap and couldn't. And I took him up and he was quiet +then. I think he was pleased that I took him ... I've given him the +morphia pill and I don't think he's in pain. He'll die in his sleep." + +"Yes. He'll die in his sleep." + +He hardly knew what he was saying. He was looking at Anne, and it was as +if now, at last, he saw her for the first time. This, this was what he +wanted, this mysterious, strangely smiling Anne, this white Anne with +the great plaited rope of black hair, who belonged to the night and the +dawn. + +"I'm going to get you some tea," he said. + +He went down to the kitchen where everything had been left ready for him +over-night. He lit the gas-ring and made the tea and brought it to her +with cake and bread and butter on a little tray. He set it down beside +her on the window-seat. But Anne could neither eat nor drink. She cried +out to him. + +"Oh, Jerry, look at him. Do you think he's dying now?" + +He knelt down and looked. Nicky's eyes were two slits of glaze between +half-shut lids. His fur stood up on his bulging, frowning forehead. His +little, flat cat's face was drawn to a point with a look of helpless +innocence and anguish. His rose-leaf tongue showed between his teeth as +he panted. + +"Yes. I'm awfully afraid he's dying." + +They waited half an hour, an hour. They never knew how long. Once he +said to her, "Would you rather I went or stayed?" And she said, "Stayed, +if you don't mind." + +Through the open window, from the fields of charlock warm in the risen +sun, the faint, smooth scent came to them. + +Then Nicky began to cough with a queer quacking sound. Jerrold went to +her, upsetting the saucer as he came. + +"It's his milk," she said. "He couldn't drink it." And with that she +burst into tears. + +"Oh, Anne, don't cry. Don't cry, Anne darling." + +He put his arm round her. He laid his hand on her hair and stroked it. +He stooped suddenly and kissed her face; gently, quietly, because of the +dead thing in her lap. + +It was as if he had kissed her for the first time. + +For one instant she had her arm round his neck and clung to him, hiding +her face on his shoulder. Then suddenly she loosed herself and stood up +before him, holding out the body of the little cat. + +"Take him away, please, Jerry, so that I don't see him." + +He took him away. + +All day the sense of kissing her remained with him, and all night, with +the scent of her hair, the sweet rose-scent of her flesh, the touch of +her smooth rose-leaf skin. That was Anne, that strangeness, that beauty +of the clear, cold dawn, that scent, that warm sweet smoothness, that +clinging of passionate arms. And he had kissed her gently, quietly, as +you kiss a child, as you kiss a young, small animal. + +He wanted to kiss her close, pressing down on her mouth, deep into her +sweet flesh; to hold her body tight, tight, crushed in his arms. If it +hadn't been for Nicky that was the way he would have kissed her. + +To-morrow, to-morrow, he would kiss Anne that way. + + + +IV + + +ROBERT + +i + +But when to-morrow came he did not kiss her. He was annoyed with Anne +because she insisted on taking a gloomy view of his father's illness. + +The doctors couldn't agree about it. Dr. Ransome of Wyck said it was +gastritis. Dr. Harper of Cheltenham said it was colitis. He had had that +before and had got better. Now he was getting worse, fast. For the last +three days he couldn't keep down his chicken and fish. Yesterday not +even his milk. To-day, not even his ice-water. Then they both said it +was acute gastritis. + +"He's never been like this before, Jerrold." + +"No. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to get better. People with +acute gastritis do get better. It's enough to make him die, everybody +insisting that he's going to. And it's rot sending for Eliot." + +That was what Anne had done. + +Eliot had written to her from London: + 10 Welbeck St., _Sept. 35th, 1910._ + + My dear Anne: + + I wish you'd tell me how Father really is. Nobody but you has + any intelligence that matters. Between Mother's wails and + Jerrold's optimism I don't seem to be getting the truth. If it's + serious I'll come down at once. + + Always yours, + + Eliot. + +And Anne had answered: + + My dear Eliot, + + It _is_ serious. Dr. Ransome and Dr. Harper say so. They think + now it's acute gastritis. I wish you'd come down. Jerrold is + heart-breaking. He won't see it; because he couldn't bear it if + he did. I know Auntie wants you. + + Always very affectionately yours, + + Anne. + +She addressed the letter to Dr. Eliot Fielding, for Eliot had taken his +degree. + +And on that to-morrow of Jerrold's Eliot had come. Jerrold told him he +was a perfect idiot, rushing down like that, as if Daddy hadn't an hour +to live. + +"You'll simply terrify him," he said. "He hasn't got a chance with all +you people grousing and croaking round him." + +And he went off to play in the lawn tennis tournament at Medlicote as a +protest against the general pessimism. His idea seemed to be that if he, +Jerrold, could play in a lawn tennis tournament, his father couldn't be +seriously ill. + +"It's perfectly awful of Jerrold," his mother said. "I can't make him +out. He adores his father, yet he behaves as if he hadn't any feeling." + +She and Anne were sitting in the lounge after luncheon, waiting for +Eliot to come from his father's room. + +"Didn't you _tell_ him, Anne?" + +"I did everything I know.... But darling, he isn't unfeeling. He does it +because he can't bear to think Uncle Robert won't get better. He's +trying to make himself believe he will. I think he does believe it. But +if he stayed away from the tournament that would mean he didn't." + +"If only _I_ could. But I must. I _must_ believe it if I'm not to go +mad. I don't know what I shall do if he doesn't get better. I can't live +without him. It's been so perfect, Anne. It can't come to an end like +this. It can't happen. It would be too cruel." + +"It would," Anne said. But she thought: "It just will happen. It's +happening now." + +"Here's Eliot," she said. + +Eliot came down the stairs. Adeline went to him. + +"Oh Eliot, what do you think of him?" + +Eliot put her off. "I can't tell you yet." + +"You think he's very bad?" + +"Very." + +"But you don't think there isn't any hope?" + +"I can't tell yet. There may be. He wants you to go to him. Don't talk +much to him. Don't let him talk. And don't, whatever you do, let him +move an inch." + +Adeline went upstairs. Anne and Eliot were alone. "You _can_ tell," she +said. "You don't think there's any hope." + +"I don't. There's something quite horribly wrong. His temperature's a +hundred and three." + +"Is that bad?" + +"Very." + +"I do wish Jerry hadn't gone." + +"So do I." + +"It'll be worse for him, Eliot, than for any of us when he knows." + +"I know. But he's always been like that, as long as I can remember. He +simply can't stand trouble. It's the only thing he funks. And his +funking it wouldn't matter if he'd stand and face it. But he runs away. +He's running away now. Say what you like, it's a sort of cowardice." + +"It's his only fault." + +"I know it is. But it's a pretty serious one, Anne. And he'll have to +pay for it. The world's chock full of suffering and all sorts of +horrors, and you can't go turning your back to them as Jerrold does +without paying for it. Why, he won't face anything that's even a little +unpleasant. He won't listen if you try to tell him. He won't read a book +that hasn't a happy ending. He won't go to a play that isn't a comedy... +It's an attitude I can't understand. I don't like horrors any more than +he does; but when I hear about them I want to go straight where they are +and do something to stop them. That's what I chose my profession for." + +"I know. Because you're so sorry. So sorry. But Jerry's sorry too. So +sorry that he can't bear it." + +"But he's got to bear it. There it is and he's got to take it. He's only +making things worse for himself by holding out and refusing. Jerrold +will never be any good till he _has_ taken it. Till he's suffered +damnably." + +"I don't want him to suffer. I don't want it. I can't bear him to bear +it." + +"He must. He's got to." + +"I'd do anything to save him. But I can't." + +"You can't. And you mustn't try to. It would be the best thing that +could happen to him." + +"Oh no, not to Jerry." + +"Yes. To Jerry. If he's ever to be any good. You don't want him to be a +moral invalid, do you?" + +"No... Oh Eliot, that's Uncle Robert's door." + +Upstairs the door opened and shut and Adeline came to the head of the +stairs. + +"Oh Eliot, come quick----" + +Eliot rushed upstairs. And Anne heard Adeline sobbing hysterically and +crying out to him. + +"I can't--I can't. I can not bear it!" + +She saw her trail off along the gallery to her room; she heard her lock +herself in. She had every appearance of running away from something. +From something she could not bear. Half an hour passed before Eliot came +back to Anne. + +"What was it?" she said. + +"What I thought. Gastric ulcer. He's had a haemorrhage." + +That was what Aunt Adeline had run away from. + +"Look here, Anne, I've got to send Scarrott in the car for Ransome. Then +he'll have to go on to Cheltenham to fetch Colin." + +"Colin?" This was the end then. + +"Yes. He'd better come. And I want you to do something. I want you to +drive over to Medlicote and bring Jerrold back. It's beastly for you. +But you'll do it, won't you?" + +"I'll do anything." + +It was the beastliest thing she had ever had to do, but she did it. + +From where she drew up in the drive at Medlicote she could see the +tennis courts. She could see Jerrold playing in the men's singles. He +stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was +turned to her as he stood. + +She heard him shout. She heard him laugh. She saw him turn to come up +the court, facing her. + +And when he saw her, he knew. + + +ii + +He had waited ten minutes in the gallery outside his father's room. +Eliot had asked Anne to go in and help him while Jerrold stood by the +door to keep his mother out. She was no good, Eliot said. She lost her +head just when he wanted her to do things. You could have heard her all +over the house crying out that she couldn't bear it. + +She opened her door and looked out. When she saw Jerrold she came to +him, slowly, supporting herself by the gallery rail. Her eyes were sore +with crying and there was a flushed thickening about the edges of her +mouth. + +"So you've come back," she said. "You might go in and tell me how he +is." + +"Haven't you seen him?" + +"Of course I've seen him. But I'm afraid, Jerrold. It was awful, awful, +the haemorrhage. You can't think how awful. I daren't go in and see it +again. I shouldn't be a bit of good if I did. I should only faint, or be +ill or something. I simply can not bear it." + +"You mustn't go in," he said. + +"Who's with him?" + +"Eliot and Anne." + +"Anne?" + +"Yes." + +"Jerrold, to think that Anne should be with him and me not." + +"Well, she'll be all right. She can stand things." + +"It's all very well for Anne. He isn't _her_ husband." + +"You'd better go away, Mother." + +"Not before you tell me how he is. Go in, Jerrold." + +He knocked and went in. + +His father was sitting up in his white, slender bed, raised on Eliot's +arm. He saw his face, strained and smoothed with exhaustion, sallow +white against the pillows, the back-drawn-mouth, the sharp, peaked nose, +the iron grey hair, pointed with sweat, sticking to the forehead. A face +of piteous, tired patience, waiting. He saw Eliot's face, close, close +beside it by the edge of the pillow, grave and sombre and intent. + +Anne was crossing the room from the bed to the washstand. Her face was +very white but she had an air of great competence and composure. She +carried a white basin brimming with a reddish froth. He saw little red +specks splashed on the sleeve of her white linen gown. He shuddered. + +Eliot made a sign to him and he went back to the door where his mother +waited. + +"Is he better?" she whispered. "Can I come in?" + +Jerrold shook his head. "Better not--yet." + +"You'll send for me if--if--" + +"Yes." + +He heard her trailing away along the gallery. He went into the room. He +stood at the foot of the bed and stared, stared at his father lying +there in Eliot's arms. He would have liked to have been in Eliot's +place, close to him, close, holding him. As it was he could do nothing +but stand and look at him with that helpless, agonized stare. He _had_ +to look at him, to look and look, punishing himself with sight for not +having seen. + +His eyes felt hot and brittle; they kept on filling with tears, burned +themselves dry and filled again. His hand clutched the edge of the +footrail as if only so he could keep his stand there. + +A stream of warm air came through the open windows. Everything in the +room stood still in it, unnaturally still, waiting. He was aware of the +pattern of the window curtains. Blue parrots perched on brown branches +among red flowers on a white ground; it all hung very straight and +still, waiting. + +Anne looked at him and spoke. She was standing beside the bed now, +holding the clean basin and a towel, ready. + +"Jerrold, you might go and get some more ice. It's in the bucket in the +bath-room. Break it up into little pieces, like that. You split it with +a needle." + +He went to the bath-room, moving like a sleepwalker, wrapped in his +dream-like horror. He found the ice, he broke it into little pieces, +like that. He was very careful and conscientious about the size, and +grateful to Anne for giving him something to do. Then he went back again +and took up his station at the foot of the bed and waited. His father +still lay back on his pillow, propped by Eliot's arm. His hands were +folded on his chest above the bedclothes. + +Anne still stood by the bed holding her basin and her towel ready. From +time to time they gave him little pieces of ice to suck. + +Once he opened his eyes, looked round the room and spoke. "Is your +mother there?" + +"Do you want her?" Eliot said. + +"No. It'll only upset her. Don't let her come in." + +He closed his eyes and opened them again. + +"Is that Anne?" + +"Yes. Who did you think it was?" + +"I don't know...I'm sorry, Anne." + +"Darling--" the word broke from a tender inarticulate sound she made. + +Then: "Jerrold--," he said. + +Jerrold came closer. His father's right arm unfolded itself and +stretched out towards him along the bed. + +Anne whispered, "Take his hand." Jerrold took it. He could feel it +tremble as he touched it. + +"It's all right, Jerry," he said. "It's all right." He gave a little +choking cough. His eyes darkened with a sudden anxiety, a fear. His hand +slackened. His head sank forward. Anne came between them. Jerrold felt +the slight thrust of her body pushing him aside. He saw her arms +stretched out, and the white gleam of the basin, then, the haemorrhage, +jet after jet. Then his father's face tilted up on Eliot's arm, very +white, and Anne stooping over him tenderly, and her hand with the towel, +wiping the red foam from his lips. + +Then eyes glazed between half-shut lids, mouth open, and the noise of +death. + +Eliot's arm laid down its burden. He got up and put his hand on +Jerrold's shoulder and led him out of the room. "Go out into the air," +he said. "I'll tell Mother." + +Jerrold staggered downstairs, and through the hall and out into the +blinding sunshine. + +Far down the avenue he could hear the whirring of the car coming back +from Cheltenham; the lines of the beech trees opened fan-wise to let it +through. He saw Colin sitting up beside Scarrott. + +Above his head a lattice ground and clattered. Somebody was going +through the front rooms, shutting the windows and pulling down the +blinds. + +Jerrold turned back into the house to meet Colin there. + +Upstairs his father's door opened and shut softly and Anne came out. She +moved along the gallery to her room. Between the dark rails he could see +her white skirt, and her arm, hanging, and the little specks of red +splashed on the white sleeve. + + +iii + +Jerrold was afraid of Anne, and he saw no end to his fear. He had been +dashed against the suffering he was trying to put away from him and the +shock of it had killed in one hour his young adolescent passion. She +would be for ever associated with that suffering. He would never see +Anne without thinking of his father's death. He would never think of his +father's death without seeing Anne. He would see her for ever through an +atmosphere of pain and horror, moving as she had moved in his father's +room. He couldn't see her any other way. This intolerable memory of her +effaced all other memories, memories of the child Anne with the rabbit, +of the young, happy Anne who walked and rode and played with him, of the +strange, mysterious Anne he had found yesterday in her room at dawn. +That Anne belonged to a time he had done with. There was nothing left +for him but the Anne who had come to tell him his father was dying, who +had brought him to his father's death-bed, who had bound herself up +inseparably with his death, who only moved from the scene of it to +appear dressed in black and carrying the flowers for his funeral. + +She was wrapped round and round with death and death, nothing but death, +and with Jerrold's suffering. When he saw her he suffered again. And as +his way had always been to avoid suffering, he avoided Anne. His eyes +turned from her if he saw her coming. He spoke to her without looking at +her. He tried not to think of her. When he had gone he would try not to +remember. + +His one idea was to go, to get away from the place his father had died +in and from the people who had seen him die. He wanted new unknown +faces, new unknown voices that would not remind him------ + +Ten days after his father's death the letter came from John Severn. He +wrote: + +"... I'm delighted about Sir Charles Durham. You are a lucky devil. Any +chap Sir Charles takes a fancy to is bound to get on. He can't help +himself. You're not afraid of hard work, and I can tell you we give our +Assistant Commissioners all they want and a lot more. + +"It'll be nice if you bring Anne out with you. If you're stationed +anywhere near us we ought to give her the jolliest time in her life +between us." + +"But Jerrold," said Adeline when she had read this letter. "You're not +going out _now_. You must wire and tell him so." + +"Why not now?" + +"Because, my dear boy, you've got the estate and you must stay and look +after it." + +"Barker'll look after it. That's what he's there for." + +"Nonsense, Jerrold. There's no need for you to go out to India." + +"There _is_ need. I've got to go." + +"You haven't. There's every need for you to stop where you are. Eliot +will be going abroad if Sir Martin Crozier takes him on. And if Colin +goes into the diplomatic service Goodness knows where he'll be sent to." + +"Colin won't be sent anywhere for another four years." + +"No. But he'll be at Cheltenham or Cambridge half the time. I must have +one son at home." + +"Sorry, Mother. But I can't stand it here. I've got to go, and I'm +going." + +To all her arguments and entreaties he had one answer: He had got to go +and he was going. + +Adeline left him and went to look for Eliot whom she found in his room +packing to go back to London. She came sobbing to Eliot. + +"It's too dreadfully hard. As if it weren't bad enough to lose my +darling husband I must lose all my sons. Not one of you will stay with +me. And there's Anne going off with Jerrold. _She_ may have him with her +and I mayn't. She's taken everything from me. You'd have said if a +wife's place was anywhere it was with her dying husband. But no. _She_ +was allowed to be with him and _I_ was turned out of his room." + +"My dear Mother, you know you weren't." + +"I _was_. You turned me out yourself, Eliot, and had Anne in." + +"Only because you couldn't stand it and she could." + +"I daresay. She hadn't the same feelings." + +"She had her own feelings, anyhow, only she controlled them. She stood +it because she never thought of her feelings. She only thought of what +she could do to help. She was magnificent." + +"Of course you think so, because you're in love with her. She must take +you, too. As if Jerrold wasn't enough." + +"She hasn't taken me. She probably won't if I ask her. You shouldn't say +those things, Mother. You don't know what you're talking about." + +"I know I'm the most unhappy woman in the world. How am I going to live? +I can't stand it if Jerry goes." + +"He's got to go, Mother." + +"He hasn't. Jerrold's place is here. He's got a duty and a +responsibility. Your dear father didn't leave him the estate for him to +let it go to wrack and ruin. It's most cruel and wrong of him." + +"He can't do anything else. Don't you see why he wants to go? He can't +stand the place without Father." + +"I've got to stand it. So he may." + +"Well, he won't, that's all. He simply funks it." + +"He always was an arrant coward where trouble was concerned. He doesn't +think of other people and how bad it is for them. He leaves me when I +want him most." + +"It's hard on you, Mother; but you can't stop him. And I don't think you +ought to try." + +"Oh, everybody tells me what _I_ ought to do. My children can do as they +like. So can Anne. She and Jerrold can go off to India and amuse +themselves as if nothing had happened and it's all right." + +But Anne didn't go off to India. + +When she spoke to Jerrold about going with him his hard, unhappy face +showed her that he didn't want her. + +"You'd rather I didn't go," she said gently. + +"It isn't that, Anne. It isn't that I don't want you. It's--it's simply +that I want to get away from here, to get away from everything that +reminds me--I shall go off my head if I've got to remember every minute, +every time I see somebody who--I want to make a clean break and grow a +new memory." + +"I understand. You needn't tell me." + +"Mother doesn't. I wish you'd make her see it." + +"I'll try. But it's all right, Jerrold. I won't go." + +"Of course you'll go. Only you won't think me a brute if I don't take +you out with me?" + +"I'm not going out with you. In fact, I don't think I'm going at all. I +only wanted to because of going out together and because of the chance +of seeing you when you got leave. I only thought of the heavenly times +we might have had." + +"Don't--don't, Anne." + +"No, I won't. After all, I shouldn't care a rap about Ambala if you +weren't there. And you may be stationed miles away. I'd rather go back +to Ilford and do farming. Ever so much rather. India would really have +wasted a lot of time." + +"Oh, Anne, I've spoilt all your pleasure." + +"No, you haven't. There isn't any pleasure to spoil--now." + +"What a brute--what a cad you must think me." + +"I don't, Jerry. It's not your fault. Things have just happened. And you +see, I understand. I felt the same about Auntie Adeline after Mother +died. I didn't want to see her because she reminded me--and yet, really, +I loved her all the time." + +"You won't go back on me for it?" + +"I wouldn't go back on you whatever you did. And you mustn't keep on +thinking I _want_ to go to India. I don't care a rap about India itself. +I hate Anglo-Indians and I simply loathe hot places. And Daddy doesn't +want me out there, really. I shall be much happier on my farm. And it'll +save a lot of expense, too. Just think what my outfit and passage would +have cost." + +"You wouldn't have cared what it cost if--" + +"There isn't any if. I'm not lying, really." Not lying. Not lying. She +would have given up more than India to save Jerrold that pang of memory. +Only, when it was all over and he had sailed without her, she realized +in one wounding flash that what she had given up was Jerrold himself. + + + +V + + +ELIOT AND ANNE + +i + +Anne did not go back to her Ilford farm at once. Adeline had made that +impossible. + +At the prospect of Anne's going her resentment died down as suddenly as +it had risen. She forgot that Anne had taken her sons' affection and her +place beside her husband's deathbed. And though she couldn't help +feeling rather glad that Jerrold had gone to India without Anne, she was +sorry for her. She loved her and she meant to keep her. She said she +simply could not bear it if Anne left her, and _was_ it the time to +choose when she wanted her as she had never wanted her before? She had +nobody to turn to, as Anne knew. Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams and +people were all very well; but they were outsiders. + +"It's the inside people that I want now, Anne. You're deep inside, +dear." + +Yes, of course she had relations. But relations were no use. They were +all wrapped up in their own tiresome affairs, and there wasn't one of +them she cared for as she cared for Anne. + +"I couldn't care more if you were my own daughter. Darling Robert felt +about you just the same. You _can't_ leave me." + +And Anne didn't. She never could resist unhappiness. She thought: "I was +glad enough to stop with her through all the happy times. I'd be a +perfect beast to go and leave her now when she's miserable and hasn't +got anybody." + +It would have been better for Anne if she could have gone. Robert +Fielding's death and Jerrold's absence were two griefs that inflamed +each other; they came together to make one immense, intolerable wound. +And here at Wyck, she couldn't move without coming upon something that +touched it and stung it to fresh pain. But Anne was not like Jerrold, to +turn from what she loved because it hurt her. For as long as she could +remember all her happiness had come to her at Wyck. If unhappiness came +now, she had got, as Eliot said, "to take it." + +And so she stayed on through the autumn, then over Christmas to the New +Year; this time because of Colin who was suffering from depression. +Colin had never got over his father's death and Jerrold's going; and the +last thing Jerrold had said to her before he went was; "You'll look +after Col-Col, won't you? Don't let him go grousing about by himself." + +Jerrold had always expected her to look after Colin. At seventeen there +was still something piteous and breakable about him, something that +clung to you for help. Eliot said that if Colin didn't look out he'd be +a regular neurotic. But he owned that Anne was good for him. + +"I don't know what you do to him, but he's better when you're there." + +Eliot was the one who appeared to have recovered first. He met the shock +of his father's death with a defiant energy and will. + +He was working now at bacteriology under Sir Martin Crozier. Covered +with a white linen coat, in a white-washed room of inconceivable +cleanness, surrounded by test-tubes and mixing jars, Eliot spent the +best part of the day handling the germs of the deadliest diseases; +making cultures, examining them under the microscope; preparing +vaccines. He went home to the brown velvety, leathery study in his +Welbeck Street flat to write out his notes, or read some monograph on +inoculation; or he dined with a colleague and talked to him about +bacteria. + +At this period of his youth Eliot had more than ever the appearance of +inhuman preoccupation. His dark, serious face detached itself with a +sort of sullen apathy from the social scene. He seemed to have no keen +interests beyond his slides and mixing jars and test-tubes. Women, for +whom his indifference had a perverse fascination, said of him: "Dr. +Fielding isn't interested in people, only in their diseases. And not +really in diseases, only in their germs." + +They never suspected that Eliot was passionate, and that a fierce pity +had driven him into his profession. The thought of preventable disease +filled him with fury; he had no tolerance for the society that tolerated +it. He suffered because he had a clearer vision and a profounder sense +of suffering than most persons. Up to the time of his father's death all +Eliot's suffering had been other people's. He couldn't rest till he had +done something to remove the cause of it. + +Add to this an insatiable curiosity as to causes, and you have the main +bent of Eliot's mind. + +And it seemed to him that there was nobody but Anne who saw that hidden +side of him. _She_ knew that he was sorry for people, and that being +sorry for them had made him what he was, like Jerrold and yet unlike +him. Eliot was attracted to suffering by the same sensitiveness that +made Jerrold avoid everything once associated with it. + +And so the very thing that Jerrold couldn't bear to remember was what +drew Eliot closer to Anne. He saw her as Jerrold had seen her, moving, +composed and competent, in his father's room; he saw her stooping over +him to help him, he saw the specks of blood on her white sleeve; and he +thought of her with the more tenderness. From that instant he really +loved her. He wanted Anne as he had never conceived himself wanting any +woman. He could hardly remember his first adolescent feeling for her, +that confused mixture of ignorant desire and fear, so different was it +from the intense, clear passion that possessed him now. At night when +his work was done, he lay in bed, not sleeping, thinking of Anne with +desire that knew itself too well to be afraid. Anne was the one thing +necessary to him beside his work, necessary as a living part of himself. +She could only not come before his work because Eliot's work came before +himself and his own happiness. When he went down every other week-end to +Wyck-on-the-Hill he knew that it was to see Anne. + +His mother knew it too. + +"I wish Eliot would marry," she said. + +"Why?" said Anne. + +"Because then he wouldn't be so keen on going off to look for germs in +disgusting climates." + +Anne wondered whether Adeline knew Eliot. For Eliot talked to her about +his work as he walked with her at a fine swinging pace over the open +country, taking all his exercise now while he could get it. That was +another thing he liked about Anne Severn, her splendid physical fitness; +she could go stride for stride with him, and mile for mile, and never +tire. Her mind, too, was robust and active, and full of curiosity; it +listened by the hour and never tired. It could move, undismayed, among +horrors. She could see, as he saw, the "beauty" of the long trains of +research by which Sir Martin Crozier had tracked down the bacillus of +amoebic dysentery and established the difference between typhoid and +Malta fever. + +Once started on his subject, the grave, sullen Eliot talked excitedly. + +"You do see, Anne, how thrilling it is, don't you? For me there's +nothing but bacteriology. I always meant to go in for it, and Sir +Martin's magnificent. Absolutely top-hole. You see, all these disgusting +diseases can be prevented. It's inconceivable that they should be +tolerated in a civilized country. People can't care a rap or they +couldn't sleep in their beds. They ought to get up and make a public row +about it, to insist on compulsory inoculation for everybody whether they +like it or not. It really isn't enough to cure people of diseases when +they've got them. We ought to see that they never get them, that there +aren't any to get... What we don't know yet is the complete behaviour of +all these bacteria among themselves. A bad bacillus may be doing good +work by holding down a worse one. It's conceivable that if we succeeded +in exterminating all known diseases we might release an unknown one, +supremely horrible, that would exterminate the race." + +"Oh Eliot, how awful. How can _you_ sleep in your bed?" + +"You needn't worry. It's only a nightmare idea of mine." + +And so on and so on, for he was still so young that he wanted Anne to be +excited by the things that excited him. And Anne told him all about her +Ilford farm and what she meant to do on it. Eliot didn't behave like +Aunt Adeline, he listened beautifully, like Uncle Robert and Jerrold, as +if it was really most important that you should have a farm and work on +it. + +"What I want is to sell it and get one here. I don't want to be anywhere +else. I can't tell you how frightfully home-sick I am when I'm away. I +keep on seeing those gables with the little stone balls, and the +peacocks, and the fields down to the Manor Farm. And the hills, Eliot. +When I'm away I'm always dreaming that I'm trying to get back to them +and something stops me. Or I see them and they turn into something else. +I shan't be happy till I can come back for good." + +"You don't want to go to India?" Eliot's heart began to beat as he asked +his question. + +"I want to work. To work hard. To work till I'm so dead tired that I +roll off to sleep the minute I get into bed. So tired that I can't +dream." + +"That isn't right. You're too young to feel like that, Anne." + +"I do feel like it. You feel like it yourself--My farm is to me what +your old bacteria are to you." + +"Oh, if I thought it was the farm--" + +"Why, what else did you think it was?" + +Eliot couldn't bring himself to tell her. He took refuge in apparent +irrelevance. + +"You know Father left me the Manor Farm house, don't you?" + +"No, I didn't. I suppose he thought you'd want to come back, like me." + +"Well, I'm glad I've got it. Mother's got the Dower House in Wyck. But +she'll stay on here till--" + +"Till Jerrold comes back," said Anne bravely. + +"I don't suppose Jerry'll turn her out even then. Unless--" + +But neither he nor Anne had the courage to say "unless he marries." + +Not Anne, because she couldn't trust herself with the theme of Jerrold's +marrying. Not Eliot, because he had Jerrold's word for it that if he +married anybody, ever, it would not be Anne. + + * * * * * + +It was this assurance that made it possible for him to say what he had +been thinking of saying all the time that he talked to Anne about his +bacteriology. Bacteriology was a screen behind which Eliot, uncertain of +Anne's feelings, sheltered himself against irrevocable disaster. He +meant to ask Anne to marry him, but he kept putting it off because, so +long as he didn't know for certain that she wouldn't have him, he was at +liberty to think she would. He would not be taking her from Jerrold. +Jerrold, inconceivable ass, didn't want her. Eliot had made sure of that +months ago, the night before Jerrold sailed. He had simply put it to +him: what did he mean to do about Anne Severn? And Jerrold had made it +very plain that his chief object in going to India was to get away from +Anne Severn and Everything. Eliot knew Jerrold too well to suspect his +sincerity, so he considered that the way was now honorably open to him. + +His only uncertainty was Anne herself. He had meant to give her a year +to forget Jerrold in, if she was ever going to forget him; though in +moments of deeper insight he realized that Anne was not likely to +forget, nor to marry anybody else as long as she remembered. + +Yet, Eliot reasoned, women did marry, even remembering. They married and +were happy. You saw it every day. He was content to take Anne on her own +terms, at any cost, at any risk. He had never been afraid of risks, and +once he had faced the chance of her refusal all other dangers were +insignificant. + +A year was a long time, and Eliot had to consider the probability of his +going out to Central Africa with Sir Martin Crozier to investigate +sleeping sickness. He wanted the thing settled one way or another before +he went. + +He put it off again till the next week-end. And in the meanwhile Sir +Martin Crozier had seen him. He was starting in the spring and Eliot was +to go with him. + +It was on Sunday evening that he spoke to Anne, sitting with her under +the beeches at the top of the field where she and Jerrold had sat +together. Eliot had chosen his place badly. + +"I wouldn't bother you so soon if I wasn't going away, but I simply +must--must know--" + +"Must know what?" + +"Whether you care for me at all. Not much, of course, but just enough +not to hate marrying me." + +Anne turned her face full on him and looked at him with her innocent, +candid eyes. And all she said was, "You _do_ know about Jerrold, don't +you?" + +"Oh God, yes. I know all about him." + +"He's why I can't." + +"I tell you, I know all about Jerrold. He isn't a good enough reason." + +"Good enough for me." + +"Not unless--" But he couldn't say it. + +"Not unless he cares for me. That's why you're asking me, then, because +you know he doesn't." + +"Well, it wouldn't be much good if I knew he did." + +"Eliot, it's awful of me to talk about it, as if he'd said he did. He +never said a word. He never will." + +"I'm afraid he won't, Anne." + +"Don't imagine I ever thought he would. He never did anything to make me +think it for a minute, really." + +"Are you quite sure he didn't?" + +"Quite sure. I made it all up out of my head. My silly head. I don't +care what you think of me so long as you don't think it was Jerry's +fault. I should go on caring for him whatever he did or didn't do." + +"I know you would. But it's possible--" + +"To care for two people and marry one of them, no matter which? It isn't +possible for me. If I can't have the person I want I won't have +anybody." + +"It isn't wise, Anne. I tell you I could make you care for me. I know +all about you. I know how you think and how you feel. I understand you +better than Jerrold does. You'd be happy with me and you'd be safe." + +"It's no use. I'd rather be unhappy and in danger if it was with +Jerrold." + +"You'll be unhappy and in danger without him." + +"I don't care. Besides, I shan't be. I shall work. You'll work, too. +It'll be so exciting that you'll soon forget all about me." + +"You know I shan't. And I'll never give you up, unless Jerrold gets +you." + +"Eliot--I only told you about Jerrold, because I thought you ought to +know. So that you mightn't think it was anything in you." + +"It isn't something in me, then? Tell me--if it hadn't been for Jerry, +do you think you might have cared for me?" + +"Yes. I do. I quite easily might. And I think it would be a jolly good +thing if I could, now. Only I can't. I can't." + +"Poor little Anne." + +"Does it comfort you to think I'd have cared if it hadn't been for +Jerry?" + +"It does, very much." + +"Eliot--you're the only person I can talk to about him. Do you mind +telling me whether he said that to you, or whether you just guessed it." + +"What?" + +"Why, that he wouldn't--ever--" + +"I asked him, Anne, because I had to know. And he told me." + +"I thought he told you." + +"Yes, he told me. But I'm a cad for letting you think he didn't care for +you. I believe he did, or that he would have cared--awfully--if my +father hadn't died just then. Your being in the room that day upset him. +If it hadn't been for that--" + +"Yes, but there _was_ that. It was like he was when Binky died and he +couldn't stand Yearp. Don't you remember how he wouldn't let me go with +him to see Yearp because he said he didn't want me mixed up with it. +Well--I've been mixed up, that's all." + +"Still, Anne, I'm certain he'd have cared--if that's any comfort to you. +You didn't make it up out of your dear little head. We all thought it. +Father thought it. I believe he wanted it. If he'd only known!" + +She thought: If he'd only known how he had hurt her, he who had never +hurt anybody in all his beautiful life. + +"Dear Uncle Robert. There's no good talking about it. I knew, the minute +Jerry said he didn't want me to go to India with him." + +"Is that why you didn't go?" + +"Yes." + +"That was a mistake, Anne. You should have gone." + +"How could I, after that? And if I had, he'd only have kept away." + +"You should have let him go first and then gone after him. You should +have turned up suddenly, in wonderful clothes, looking cheerful and +beautiful. So that you wiped out the memory he funked. As it is you've +left him nothing else to think of." + +"I daresay that's what I should have done. But it's too late. I can't do +it now." + +"I'm not so sure." + +"What, go _after_ Jerrold? Hunt him down? Dress up and scheme to make +him marry me?" + +"Yes. Yes. Yes." + +"Eliot, you know I couldn't." + +"You said once you'd commit a crime for anybody you cared about." + +"A crime, yes. But not that. I'd rather die." + +"You're too fastidious. It's only the unscrupulous people who get what +they want in this world. They know what they want and go for it. They +stamp on everything and everybody that gets in their way." + +"Oh, Eliot dear, I know what I want, and I'd go for it. If only Jerrold +knew, too." + +"He would know if you showed him." + +"And that's just what I can't do." + +"Well, don't say I didn't give you the best possible advice, against my +own interests, too." + +"It was sweet of you. But you see how impossible it is." + +"I see how adorable you are. You always were." + + +iv + +For the first time in her life Adeline was furious. + +She had asked Eliot whether he was or was not going to marry Anne +Severn, and was told that he had asked her to marry him that afternoon +and that she wouldn't have him. + +"Wouldn't have you? What's she thinking of?" + +"You'd better ask her," said Eliot, never dreaming that she would. + +But that was what Adeline did. She came that night to Anne's room just +as Anne was getting into bed. Unappeased by her defenseless attitude, +she attacked with violence. + +"What's all this about Eliot asking you to marry him?" + +Anne uncurled herself and sat up on the edge of her bed. + +"Did he tell you?" + +"Yes. Of course he told me. He says you refused him. Did you?" + +"I'm afraid I did." + +"Then Anne, you're a perfect little fool." + +"But Auntie, I don't love him." + +"Nonsense; you love him as much as most people love the men they marry. +He's quite sensible. He doesn't want you to go mad about him." + +"He wants more than I can give him." + +"Well, all I can say is if you can't give him what he wants you'd no +business to go about with him as you've been doing." + +"I've been going about with him all my life and I never dreamed he'd +want to marry me." + +"What did you suppose he'd want?" + +"Why, nothing but just to go about. As we always did." + +"You idiot." + +"I don't see why you should be so cross about it." + +Adeline sat down in the armchair at the head of the bed, prepared to +"have it out" with Anne. + +"I suppose you think my son's happiness is nothing to me? Didn't it +occur to you that if you refuse him he'll stick for years in that awful +place he's going to? Whereas if he had a wife in England there'd be a +chance of his coming home now and then. Perhaps he'd never go out +again." + +"I'm sorry, Auntie. I can't marry Eliot even to keep him in England. +Even to please you." + +"Even to save his life, you mean. You don't care if he dies of some +hideous tropical disease." + +"I care awfully. But I can't marry him. He knows why." + +"It's more than I do. If you're thinking of Jerrold, you needn't. I +thought you'd done with that schoolgirlish nonsense." + +"I'm not 'thinking' of him. I'm not 'thinking' of anybody and I wish +you'd leave me alone." + +"My dear child, how can I leave you alone when I see you making the +mistake of your life? Eliot is absolutely the right person for you, if +you'd only the sense to see it. He's got more character than anybody I +know. Much more than dear Jerry. He'll be ten times more interesting to +live with." + +"I thought Jerrold was your favourite." + +"No, Eliot, my dear. Always Eliot. He was my first baby." + +"Well, I'm awfully sorry you mind so much. And I'd marry Eliot if I +could. I simply hate him to be unhappy. But he won't be. He'll live to +be frightfully glad I didn't...What, aren't you going to kiss me +good-night?" + +Adeline had risen and turned away with the great dignity of her +righteous anger. + +"I don't feel like it," she said. "I think you've been thoroughly +selfish and unkind. I hate girls who go on like that--making a man mad +about you by pretending to be his comrade, and then throwing him over. +I've had more men in love with me, Anne, than you've seen in your life, +but I never did _that_." + +"Oh Auntie, what about Father? And you were engaged to him." + +"Well, anyhow," said Adeline, softened by the recollection, "I _was_ +engaged." + +She smiled her enchanting smile; and Anne, observing the breakdown of +dignity, got up off the bed and kissed her. + +"I don't suppose," she said, "that Father was the only one." + +"He wasn't. But then, with _me_, my dear, it was their own risk. They +knew where they were." + + +v + +In March, nineteen eleven, Eliot went out to Central Africa. He stayed +there two years, investigating malaria and sleeping sickness. Then he +went on to the Straits Settlements and finally took a partnership in a +practice at Penang. + +Anne left Wyck at Easter and returned in August because of Colin. Then +she went back to her Ilford farm. + +The two years passed, and in the spring of the third year, nineteen +fourteen, she came again. + + + +VI + + +QUEENIE + +i + +Something awful had happened. Adeline had told Anne about it. + +It seemed that Colin in his second year at Cambridge, when he should +have given his whole mind to reading for the Diplomatic Service, had had +the imprudence to get engaged. And to a girl that Adeline had never +heard of, about whom nothing was known but that she was remarkably +handsome and that her family (Courthopes of Leicestershire) were, in +Adeline's brief phrase, "all right." + +From the terrace they could see, coming up the lawn from the goldfish +pond, Colin and his girl. + +Queenie Courthope. She came slowly, her short Russian skirt swinging out +from her ankles. The brilliance of her face showed clear at a distance, +vermilion on white, flaming; hard, crystal eyes, sweeping and flashing; +bobbed hair, brown-red, shining in the sun. Then a dominant, squarish +jaw, and a mouth exquisitely formed, but thin, a vermilion thread drawn +between her staring, insolent nostrils and the rise of her round chin. + +This face in its approach expressed a profound, arrogant indifference to +Adeline and Anne. Only as it turned towards Colin its grey-black eyes +lowered and were soft dark under the black feathers of their brows. + +Colin looked back at it with a shy, adoring tenderness. + +Queenie could be even more superbly uninterested than Adeline. In +Adeline's self-absorption there was a passive innocence, a candor that +disarmed you, but Queenie's was insolent and hostile; it took possession +of the scene and challenged every comer. + +"Hallo, Anne!" Colin shouted. "How did you get here?" + +"Motored down." + +"I say, have you got a car?" + +"Only just." + +"Drove yourself?" + +"Rather." + +Queenie scowled as if there were something disagreeable to her in the +idea that Anne should have a car of her own and drive it. She endured +the introduction in silence and addressed herself with an air of +exclusiveness to Colin. + +"What are we going to do?" + +"Anything you like," he said. + +"I'll play you singles, then." + +"Anne might like to play," said Colin. But he still looked at Queenie, +as she flamed in her beauty. + +"Oh, three's a rotten game. You can't play the two of us unless Miss +Severn handicaps me." + +"She won't do that. Anne could take us both on and play a decent game." + +Queenie picked up her racquet and stood between them, beating her skirts +with little strokes of irritated impatience. Her eyes were fixed on +Colin, trying, you could see, to dominate him. + +"We'd better take it in turns," he said. + +"Thanks, Col-Col. I'd rather not play. I've driven ninety-seven miles." + +"Really rather?" + +Queenie backed towards the court. + +"Oh, come on, Colin, if you're coming." + +He went. + +"What do you think of Queenie?" Adeline said. + +"She's very handsome." + +"Yes, Anne. But it isn't a nice face. Now, is it?" + +Anne couldn't say it was a nice face. + +"It's awful to think of Colin being married to it. He's only twenty-one +now, and she's seven years older. If it had been anybody but Colin. If +it had been Eliot or Jerrold I shouldn't have minded so much. They can +look after themselves. He'll never stand up against that horrible girl." + +"She does look terribly strong." + +"And cruel, Anne, as if she might hurt him. I don't want him to be hurt. +I can't bear her taking him away from me. My little Col-Col....I did +hope, Anne, that if you wouldn't have Eliot--" + +"I'd have Colin? But Auntie, I'm years older than he is. He's a baby." + +"If he's a baby he'll want somebody older to look after him." + +"Queenie's even better fitted than I am, then." + +"Do you think, Anne, she proposed to Colin?" + +"No. I shouldn't think it was necessary." + +"I should say she was capable of anything. My only hope is they'll tire +each other out before they're married and break it off." + +All afternoon on the tennis court below Queenie played against Colin. +She played vigorously, excitedly, savagely, to win. She couldn't hide +her annoyance when he beat her. + +"What was I to do?" he said. "You don't like it when I beat you. But if +I was beaten you wouldn't like _me_." + + +ii + +Adeline's only hope was not realized. They hadn't had time to tire of +each other before the War broke out. And Colin insisted on marrying +before he joined up. Their engagement had left him nervous and unfit, +and his idea was that, once married, he would present a better +appearance before the medical examiners. + +But after a month of Queenie, Colin was more nervous and unfit than +ever. + +"I can't think," said Adeline, "what that woman does to him. She'll wear +him out." + +So Colin waited, trying to get fitter, and afraid to volunteer lest he +should be rejected. + +Everybody around him was moving rapidly. Queenie had taken up motoring, +so that she could drive an ambulance car at the front. Anne had gone up +to London for her Red Cross training. Eliot had left his practice to his +partner at Penang and had come home and joined the Army Medical Corps. + +Eliot, home on leave for three days before he went out, tried hard to +keep Colin back from the War. In Eliot's opinion Colin was not fit and +never would be fit to fight. He was just behaving as he always had +behaved, rushing forward, trying insanely to do the thing he never could +do. + +"Do you mean to say they won't pass me?" he asked. + +"Oh, they'll pass you all right," Eliot said. "They'll give you an +expensive training, and send you into the trenches, and in any time from +a day to a month you'll be in hospital with shell-shock. Then you'll be +discharged as unfit, having wasted everybody's time and made a damned +nuisance of yourself....I suppose I ought to say it's splendid of you to +want to go out. But it isn't splendid. It's idiotic. You'll be simply +butting in where you're not wanted, taking a better man's place, taking +a better man's commission, taking a better man's bed in a hospital. I +tell you we don't want men who are going to crumple up in their first +action." + +"Do you think I'm going to funk then?" said poor Colin. + +"Funk? Oh, Lord no. You'll stick it till you drop, till you're +paralyzed, till you've lost your voice and memory, till you're an utter +wreck. There'll be enough of 'em, poor devils, without you, Col-Col." + +"But why should I go like that more than anybody else?" + +"Because you're made that way, because you haven't got a nervous system +that can stand the racket. The noises alone will do for you. You'll be +as right as rain if you keep out of it." + +"But Jerrold's coming back. _He_'ll go out at once. How can I stick at +home when he's gone?" + +"Heaps of good work to be done at home." + +"Not by men of my age." + +"By men of your nervous organization. Your going out would be sheer +waste." + +"Why not?" Does it matter what becomes of me?" + +"No. It doesn't. It matters, though, that you'll be taking a better +man's place." + +Now Colin really did want to go out and fight, as he had always wanted +to follow Jerrold's lead; he wanted it so badly that it seemed to him a +form of self-indulgence; and this idea of taking a better man's place so +worked on him that he had almost decided to give it up, since that was +the sacrifice required of him, when he told Queenie what Eliot had said. + +"All I can say is," said Queenie, "that if you don't go out I shall give +_you_ up. I've no use for men with cold feet." + +"Can't you see," said Colin (he almost hated Queenie in that moment), +"what I'm afraid of? Being a damned nuisance. That's what Eliot says +I'll be. I don't know how he knows." + +"He doesn't know everything. If _my_ brother tried to stop my going to +the front I'd jolly soon tell him to go to hell. I swear, Colin, if you +back out of it I won't speak to you again. I'm not asking you to do +anything I funk myself." + +"Oh, shut up. I'm going all right. Not because you've asked me, but +because I want to." + +"If you didn't I should think you'd feel pretty rotten when I'm out with +my Field Ambulance," said Queenie. + +"Damn your Field Ambulance!... No, I didn't mean that, old thing; it's +splendid of you to go. But you'd no business to suppose I funked. I +_may_ funk. Nobody knows till they've tried. But I was going all right +till Eliot put me off." + +"Oh, if you're put off as easily as all that----" + +She was intolerable. She seemed to think he was only going because she'd +shamed him into it. + +That evening he sang: + + "'What are you doing all the day, Rendal, my son? + What are you doing all the day, my pretty one?'" + +He understood that song now. + + "'What will you leave to your lover, Rendal, my son? + What will you leave to your lover, my pretty one? + A rope to hang her, mother, + A rope to hang her, mother....'" + +"Go it, Col-Col!" Out on the terrace Queenie laughed her harsh, cruel +laugh. + + "'For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.'" + +"'I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down,'" Queenie echoed, with +clipped words, mocking him. + +He hated Queenie. + +And he loved her. At night, at night, she would unbend, she would be +tender and passionate, she would touch him with quick, hurrying +caresses, she would put her arms round him and draw him to her, kissing +and kissing. And with her young, beautiful body pressed tight to him, +with her mouth on his and her eyes shining close and big in the +darkness, Colin would forget. + + +iii + + Dr. Cutler's Field Ambulance, British Hospital, Antwerp. + + _September 20th, 1914._ + + Dearest Auntie Adeline,--I haven't been able to write before. + There's been a lot of fighting all round here and we're + frightfully busy getting in wounded. And when you've done you're + too tired to sit up and write letters. You simply roll into bed + and drop off to sleep. Sometimes we're out with the ambulances + half the night. + + You needn't worry about me. I'm keeping awfully fit. I _am_ + glad now I've always lived in the open air and played games and + ploughed my own land. My muscles are as hard as any Tommie's. So + are Queenie's. You see, we have to act as stretcher bearers as + well as chauffeurs. You're not much good if you can't carry your + own wounded. + + Queenie is simply splendid. She really _doesn't_ know what + fear is, and she's at her very best under fire. It sort of + excites her and bucks her up. I can't help seeing how fine she + is, though she was so beastly to poor old Col-Col before he + joined up. But talk of the War bringing out the best in people, + you should simply see her out here with the wounded. Dr. Cutler + (the Commandant) thinks no end of her. She drives for him and I + drive for a little doctor man called Dicky Cartwright. He's + awfully good at his job and decent. Queenie doesn't like him. I + can't think why. + + Good-bye, darling. Take care of yourself. + + Your loving + + Anne. + + Antwerp. _October 3rd._ + + ... You ask me what I really think of Queenie at close quarters. + Well, the quarters are very close and I know she simply hates + me. She was fearfully sick when she found we were both in the + same Corps. She's always trying to get up a row about something. + She'd like to have me fired out of Belgium if she could, but I + mean to stay as long as I can, so I won't quarrel with her. She + can't do it all by herself. And when I feel like going back on + her I tell myself how magnificent she is, so plucky and so + clever at her job. I don't wonder that half the men in our Corps + are gone on her. And there's a Belgian Colonel, the one Cutler + gets his orders from, who'd make a frantic fool of himself if + she'd let him. But good old Queenie sticks to her job and + behaves as if they weren't there. That makes them madder. You'd + have thought they'd never have had the time to be such asses in, + but it's wonderful what a state you can get into in your few odd + moments. Dicky says it's the War whips you up and makes it all + the easier. I don't know.... + + FURNES. + + _November._ + + That's where we are now. I simply can't describe the retreat. It + was too awful, and I don't want to think about it. We've + "settled" down in a house we've commandeered and I suppose we + shall stick here till we're shelled out of it. + + Talking of shelling, Queenie is funny. She's quite annoyed if + anybody besides herself gets anywhere near a shell. We picked up + two more stretcher-bearers in Ostend and a queer little + middle-aged lady out for a job at the front. Cutler took her on + as a sort of secretary. At first Queenie was so frantic that she + wouldn't speak to her, and swore she'd make the Corps too hot to + hold her. But when she found that the little lady wasn't for the + danger zone and only proposed to cook and keep our accounts for + us, she calmed down and was quite decent. Then the other day + Miss Mullins came and told us that a bit of shell had chipped + off the corner of her kitchen. The poor old thing was ever so + proud and pleased about it, and Queenie snubbed her frightfully, + and said she wasn't in any danger at all, and asked her how + she'd enjoy it if she was out all day under fire, like us. + + And she was furious with me because I had the luck to get into + the bombardment at Dixmude and she hadn't. She talked as if I'd + done her out of her shelling on purpose, whereas it only meant + that I happened to be on the spot when the ambulances were sent + out and she was away somewhere with her own car. She really is + rather vulgar about shells. Dicky says it's a form of war + snobbishness (he hasn't got a scrap of it), but I think it + really is because all the time she's afraid of one of us being + killed. It must be that. Even Dicky owns that she's splendid, + though he doesn't like her.... + + +iv + + +Five months later. + + The Manor, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. + + _May 30th, 1915._ + + My darling Anne,--Queenie will have told you about Colin. He was + through all that frightful shelling at Ypres in April. He's been + three weeks in the hospital at Boulogne with shell-shock--had it + twice--and now he's back and in that Officers' Hospital in + Kensington, not a bit better. I really think Queenie ought to + get leave and come over and see him. + + Eliot was perfectly right. He ought never to have gone out. Of + course he was as plucky as they make them--went back into the + trenches after his first shell-shock--but his nerves couldn't + stand it. Whether they're treating him right or not, they don't + seem to be able to do anything for him. + + I'm writing to Queenie. But tell her she must come and see him. + + Your loving + + Adeline Fielding. + +Three months later. + + The Manor, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. + + _August 30th._ + + Darling Anne,--Colin has been discharged at last as incurable. + He is with me here. I'm so glad to have him, the darling. But + oh, his nerves are in an awful state--all to bits. He's an utter + wreck, my beautiful Colin; it would make your heart bleed to see + him. He can't sleep at night; he keeps on hearing shells; and if + he does sleep he dreams about them and wakes up screaming. It's + awful to hear a man scream. Anne, Queenie must come home and + look after him. My nerves are going. I can't sleep any more than + Colin. I lie awake waiting for the scream. I can't take the + responsibility of him alone, I can't really. After all, she's + his wife, and she made him go out and fight, though she knew + what Eliot said it would do to him. It's too cruel that it + should have happened to Col-Col of all people. _Make_ that woman + come. + + Your loving + + Adeline Fielding. + + Nieuport. _September 5th, 1915._ + + Darling Auntie,--I'm so sorry about dear Col-Col. And I quite + agree that Queenie ought to go back and look after him. But she + won't. She says her work here is much more important and that + she can't give up hundreds of wounded soldiers for just one man. + Of course she is doing splendidly, and Cutler says he can't + spare her and she'd be simply thrown away on one case. They + think Colin's people ought to look after him. It doesn't seem to + matter to either of them that he's her husband. They've got into + the way of looking at everybody as a case. They say it's not + even as if Colin could be got better so as to be sent out to + fight again. It would be sheer waste of Queenie. + + But Cutler has given me leave to go over and see him. I shall + get to Wyck as soon as this letter. + + Dear Col-Col, I wish I could do something for him. I feel as if + we could never, never do too much after all he's been through. + Fancy Eliot knowing exactly what would happen. + + Your loving + + Anne. + + Nieuport. _September 7th._ + + Dear Anne,--Now that you _have_ gone I think I ought to tell you + that it would be just as well if you didn't come back. I've got + a man to take your place; Queenie picked him up at Dunkirk the + day you sailed, and he's doing very well. + + The fact is we're getting on much better since you left. There's + perfect peace now. You and Queenie didn't hit it off, you know, + and for a job like ours it's absolutely essential that everybody + should pull together like one. It doesn't do to have two in a + Corps always at loggerheads. + + I don't like to lose you, and I know you've done splendidly. But + I've got to choose between Queenie and you, and I must keep her, + if it's only because she's worked with me all the time. So now + that you've made the break I take the opportunity of asking you + to resign. Personally I'm sorry, but the good of the Corps must + come before everything. + + Sincerely yours, + + Robert Cutler. + + The Manor, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. + + _September 11th, 1915._ + + Dear Dicky,--This is only to say good-bye, as I shan't see you + again. Cutler's fired me out of the Corps. He _says_ it's + because Queenie and I don't hit it off. I shouldn't have thought + that was my fault, but he seems to think it is. He says there's + been perfect peace since I left. + + Well, we've had some tremendous times together, and I wish we + could have gone on. + + Good-bye and Good Luck, + + Yours ever, + + Anne Severn. + + P. S.--Poor Colin Fielding's in an awful state. But he's been a + bit better since I came. Even if Cutler'd let me come back I + couldn't leave him. This is my job. The queer thing is he's + afraid of Queenie, so it's just as well she didn't come home. + + Nieuport. + + _September 15th, 1915._ + + Dear Old Thing,--We're all furious here at the way you've been + treated. I've resigned as a protest, and I'm going into the R. + A. M. So has Miss Mullins--: resigned I mean--so Queenie's the + only woman left in the Corps. That'll suit her down to the + ground. + + I gave myself the treat of telling Cutler what I jolly well + think of him. But of course you know she made him hoof you out. + She's been trying for it ever since you joined. It's all rot his + saying you didn't hit it off with her, when everybody knows you + were a perfect angel to her. Why, you backed her every time when + we were all going for her. It's quite true that the peace of God + has settled on the Corps since you left it; but that's only + because Queenie doesn't rage round any more. + + You'll observe that she never went for Miss Mullins. That's + because Miss Mullins kept well out of the line of fire. And if + you hadn't jolly well distinguished yourself there she'd have + let you alone, too. The real trouble began that day you were at + Dixmude. It wasn't a bit because she was afraid you'd be killed. + Queenie doesn't want you about when the War medals are handed + round. Everybody sees that but old Cutler. He's too much gone on + her to see anything. She can twist him round and round and tie + him up in knots. + + But Cutler isn't in it now. Queenie's turned him down for that + young Noel Fenwick who's got your job. Cutler's nose was a + sight, I can tell you. + + + Well, I'm not surprised that Queenie's husband funks her. She's + a terror. Worse than war. + + Good-bye and Good Luck, Old Thing, till we meet again. + + Yours ever, + + Dicky Cartwright. + + + +VII + + +ADELINE + +i + +They would never know what it cost her to come back and look after +Colin. That knowledge was beyond Adeline Fielding. She congratulated +Anne and expected Anne to congratulate herself on being "well out of +it." Her safety was revolting and humiliating to Anne when she thought +of Queenie and Cutler and Dicky, and Eliot and Jerrold and all the +allied armies in the thick of it. She had left a world where life was +lived at its highest pitch of intensity for a world where people were +only half-alive. To be safe from the chance of sudden violent death was +to be only half-alive. + +Her one consolation had been that now she would see Jerrold. But she did +not see him. Jerrold had given up his appointment in the Punjaub three +weeks before the outbreak of the war. His return coincided with the +retreat from Mons. He had not been in England a week before he was in +training on Salisbury Plain. Anne had left Wyck when he arrived; and +before he got leave she was in Belgium with her Field Ambulance. And +now, in October of nineteen fifteen, when she came back to Wyck, Jerrold +was fighting in France. + +At least they knew what had happened to Colin; but about Eliot and +Jerrold they knew nothing. Anything might have happened to them since +they had written the letters that let them off from week to week, +telling them that they were safe. Anything might happen and they might +never know. + +Anne's fear was dumb and secret. She couldn't talk about Jerrold. She +lived every minute in terror of Adeline's talking, of the cries that +came from her at queer unexpected moments: between two cups of tea, two +glances at the mirror, two careful gestures of her hands pinning up her +hair. + +"I cannot bear it if anything happens to Jerrold, Anne." + +"Oh Anne, I wonder what's happening to Jerrold." + +"If only I knew what was happening to Jerrold." + +"If only I knew where Jerrold _was_. Nothing's so awful as not knowing." + +And at breakfast, over toast and marmalade: "Anne, I've got such an +awful feeling that something's happened to Jerrold. I'm sure these +feelings aren't given you for nothing... You aren't eating anything, +darling. You _must_ eat." + +Every morning at breakfast Anne had to look through the lists of killed, +missing and wounded, to save Adeline the shock of coming upon Jerrold's +or Eliot's name. Every morning Adeline gazed at Anne across the table +with the same look of strained and agonised enquiry. Every morning +Anne's heart tightened and dragged, then loosened and lifted, as they +were let off for one more day. + +One more day? Not one more hour, one minute. Any second the wire from +the War Office might come. + + +ii + +Anne never knew the moment when she was first aware that Colin's mother +was afraid of him. Aunt Adeline was very busy, making swabs and +bandages. Every day she went off to her War Hospital Supply work at the +Town Hall, and Anne was left to take care of Colin. She began to wonder +whether the swabs and bandages were not a pretext for getting away from +Colin. + +"It's no use," Adeline said. "I cannot stand the strain of it. Anne, +he's worse with me than he is with you. Everything I say and do is +wrong. You don't know what it was like before you came." + +Anne did know. The awful thing was that Colin couldn't bear to be left +alone, day or night. He would lie awake shivering with terror. If he +dropped off to sleep he woke screaming. At first Pinkney slept with him. +But Pinkney had joined up, and old Wilkins, the butler, was impossible +because he snored. + +Anne had her old room across the passage where she had slept when they +were children. And now, as then, their doors were left open, so that at +a sound from Colin she could get up and go to him. + +She was used to the lacerating, unearthly scream that woke her, the +scream that terrified Adeline, that made her cover her head tight with +the bed-clothes, to shut it out, that made her lock her door to shut out +Colin. Once he had come into his mother's room and she had found him +standing by her bed and looking at her with the queer frightened face +that frightened her. She was always afraid of this happening again. + +Anne couldn't bear to think of that locked door. She was used to the +sight of Colin standing in her doorway, to the watches beside his bed +where he lay shivering, holding her hand tight as he used to hold it +when he was a child. To Anne he was "poor Col-Col" again, the little boy +who was afraid of ghosts, only more abandoned to terror, more +unresisting. + +He would start and tremble at any quick, unexpected movement. He would +burst into tears at any sudden sound. Small noises, whisperings, +murmurings, creakings, soft shufflings, irritated him. Loud noises, the +slamming of doors, the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, made him +writhe in agony. For Colin the deep silence of the Manor was the ambush +for some stupendous, crashing, annihilating sound; sound that was always +coming and never came. The droop of the mouth that used to appear +suddenly in his moments of childish anguish was fixed now, and fixed the +little tortured twist of his eyebrows and his look of anxiety and fear. +His head drooped, his shoulders were hunched slightly, as if he cowered +before some perpetually falling blow. + +On fine warm days he lay out on the terrace on Adeline's long chair; on +wet days he lay on the couch in the library, or sat crouching over the +fire. Anne brought him milk or beef tea or Benger's Food every two +hours. He was content to be waited on; he had no will to move, no desire +to get up and do things for himself. He lay or sat still, shivering +every now and then as he remembered or imagined some horror. And as he +was afraid to be left alone Anne sat with him. + +"How can you say this is a quiet place?" he said. + +"It's quiet enough now." + +"It isn't. It's full of noises. Loud, thundering noises going on and on. +Awful noises.... You know what it is? It's the guns in France. I can +hear them all the time." + +"No, Colin. That isn't what you hear. We're much too far off. Nobody +could hear them." + +"_I_ can." + +"I don't think so." + +"Do you mean it's noises in my head?" + +"Yes. They'll go away when you're stronger." + +"I shall never be strong again." + +"Oh yes, you will be. You're better already." + +"If I get better they'll send me out again." + +"Never. Never again." + +"I ought to be out. I oughtn't to be sticking here doing nothing.... +Anne, you don't think Queenie'll come over, do you?" + +"No, I don't. She's got much too much to do out there." + +"You know, that's what I'm afraid of, more than anything, Queenie's +coming. She'll tell me I funked. She thinks I funked. She thinks that's +what's the matter with me." + +"She doesn't. She knows it's your body, not you. Your nerves are shaken +to bits, that's all." + +"I didn't funk, Anne." (He said it for the hundredth time.) "I mean I +stuck it all right. I went back after I had shell-shock the first +time--straight back into the trenches. It was at the very end of the +fighting that I got it again. Then I couldn't go back. I couldn't move." + +"I know, Colin, I know." + +"Does Queenie know?" + +"Of course she does. She understands perfectly. Why, she sees men with +shell-shock every day. She knows you were splendid." + +"I wasn't. But I wasn't as bad as she thinks me. ... Don't let her see +me if she comes back." + +"She won't come." + +"She will. She will. She'll get leave some day. Tell her not to come. +Tell her she can't see me. Say I'm off my head. Any old lie that'll stop +her." + +"Don't think about her." + +"I can't help thinking. She said such beastly things. You can't think +what disgusting things she said." + +"She says them to everybody. She doesn't mean them." + +"Oh, doesn't she!... Is that mother? You might tell her I'm sleeping." + +For Colin was afraid of his mother, too. He was afraid that she would +talk, that she would talk about the War and about Jerrold. Colin had +been home six weeks and he had not once spoken Jerrold's name. He read +his letters and handed them to Anne and Adeline without a word. It was +as if between him and the thought of Jerrold there was darkness and a +supreme, nameless terror. + +One morning at dawn Anne was wakened by Colin's voice in her room. + +"Anne, are you awake?" + +The room was full of the white dawn. She saw him standing in it by her +bedside. + +"My head's awfully queer," he said. "I can feel my brain shaking and +wobbling inside it, as if the convolutions had come undone. Could they?" + +"Of course they couldn't." + +"The noise might have loosened them." + +"It isn't your brain you feel, Colin. It's your nerves. It's just the +shock still going on in them." + +"Is it never going to stop?" + +"Yes, when you're stronger. Go back to bed and I'll come to you." + +He went back. She slipped on her dressing-gown and came to him. She sat +by his bed and put her hand on his forehead. + +"There--it stops when you put your hand on." + +"Yes. And you'll sleep." + +Presently, to her joy, he slept. + +She stood up and looked at him as he lay there in the white dawn. He was +utterly innocent, utterly pathetic in his sleep, and beautiful. Sleep +smoothed out his vexed face and brought back the likeness of the boy +Colin, Jerrold's brother. + +That morning a letter came to her from Jerrold. He wrote: "Don't worry +too much about Col-Col. He'll be all right as long as you'll look after +him." + +She thought: "I wonder whether he remembers that he asked me to." + +But she was glad he was not there to hear Colin scream. + + +iii + +"Anne, can _you_ sleep?" said Adeline. Colin had gone to bed and they +were sitting together in the drawing-room for the last hour of the +evening. + +"Not very well, when Colin has such bad nights." + +"Do you think he's ever going to get right again?" + +"Yes. But it'll take time." + +"A long time?" + +"Very long, probably." + +"My dear, if it does, I don't know how I'm going to stand it. And if I +only knew what was happening to Jerrold and Eliot. Sometimes I wonder +how I've lived through these five years. First, Robert's death; then the +War. And before that there was nothing but perfect happiness. I think +trouble's worse to bear when you've known nothing but happiness +before.... If I could only die instead of all these boys, Anne. Why +can't I? What is there to live for?" + +"There's Jerrold and Eliot and Colin." + +"Oh, my dear, Jerrold and Eliot may never come back. And look at poor +Colin. _That_ isn't the Colin I know. He'll never be the same again. I'd +almost rather he'd been killed than that he should be like this. If he'd +lost a leg or an arm.... It's all very well for you, Anne. He isn't your +son." + +"You don't know what he is," said Anne. She thought: "He's Jerrold's +brother. He's what Jerrold loves more than anything." + +"No," said Adeline. "Everything ended for me when Robert died. I shall +never marry again. I couldn't bear to put anybody in Robert's place." + +"Of course you couldn't. I know it's been awful for you, Auntie." + +"I couldn't bear it, Anne, if I didn't believe that there is Something +Somewhere. I can't think how you get on without any religion." + +"How do you know I haven't any?" + +"Well, you've no faith in Anything. Have you, ducky?" + +"I don't know what I've faith in. It's too difficult. If you love +people, that's enough, I think. It keeps you going through everything." + +"No, it doesn't. It's all the other way about. It's loving people that +makes it all so hard. If you didn't love them you wouldn't care what +happened to them. If I didn't love Colin I could bear his shell-shock +better." + +"If _I_ didn't love him, I couldn't bear it at all." + +"I expect," said Adeline, "we both mean the same thing." + +Anne thought of Adeline's locked door; and, in spite of her love for +her, she had a doubt. She wondered whether in this matter of loving they +had ever meant the same thing. With Adeline love was a passive state +that began and ended in emotion. With Anne love was power in action. +More than anything it meant doing things for the people that you loved. +Adeline loved her husband and her sons, but she had run away from the +sight of Robert's haemorrhage, she had tried to keep back Eliot and +Jerrold from the life they wanted, she locked her door at night and shut +Colin out. To Anne that was the worst thing Adeline had done yet. She +tried not to think of that locked door. + +"I suppose," said Adeline, "you'll leave me now your father's coming +home?" + +John Severn's letter lay between them on the table. He was retiring +after twenty-five years of India. He would be home as soon as his +letter. + +"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Anne. "I shall stay as long as +you want me. If father wants me he must come down here." + +In another three days he had come. + + +iv + +He had grey hair now and his face was a little lined, a little faded, +but he was slender and handsome still--handsomer, more distinguished, +Adeline thought, than ever. + +Again he sat out with her on the terrace when the October days were +warm; he walked with her up and down the lawn and on the flagged paths +of the flower garden. Again he followed her from the drawing-room to the +library where Colin was, and back again. He waited, ready for her. + +Again Adeline smiled her self-satisfied, self-conscious smile. She had +the look of a young girl, moving in perfect happiness. She was +perpetually aware of him. + +One night Colin called out to Anne that he couldn't sleep. People were +walking about outside under his window. Anne looked out. In the full +moonlight she saw Adeline and her father walking together on the +terrace. Adeline was wrapped in a long cloak; she held his arm and they +leaned toward each other as they walked. His man's voice sounded tender +and low. + +Anne called to them. "I say, darlings, would you mind awfully going +somewhere else? Colin can't sleep with you prowling about there." + +Adeline's voice came up to them with a little laughing quiver. + +"All right, ducky; we're going in." + + +v + +It was the end of October; John Severn had gone back to London. He had +taken a house in Montpelier Square and was furnishing it. + +One morning Adeline came down smiling, more self-conscious than ever. + +"Anne," she said, "do you think you could look after Colin if I went up +to Evelyn's for a week or two?" + +Evelyn was Adeline's sister. She lived in London. + +"Of course I can." + +"You aren't afraid of being alone with him?" + +"Afraid? Of Col-Col? What do you take me for?" + +"Well--" Adeline meditated. "It isn't as if Mrs. Benning wasn't here." + +Mrs. Benning was the housekeeper. + +"That'll make it all right and proper. The fact is, I must have a rest +and change before the winter. I hardly ever get away, as you know. And +Evelyn would like to have me. I think I must go." + +"Of course you must go," Anne said. + +And Adeline went. + +At the end of the first week she wrote: + + 12 Eaton Square. November 3d, 1915. + + Darling Anne,--Will you be very much surprised to hear that your + father and I are going to be married? You mayn't know it, but he + has loved me all his life. We _were_ to have married once (you + knew _that_), and I jilted him. But he has never changed. He has + been so faithful and forgiving, and has waited for me so + patiently--twenty-seven years, Anne--that I hadn't the heart to + refuse him. I feel that I must make up to him for all the pain + I've given him. + + We want you to come up for the wedding on the 10th. It will be + very quiet. No bridesmaids. No party. We think it best not to + have it at Wyck, on Colin's account. So I shall just be married + from Evelyn's house. + + Give us your blessing, there's a dear. + + Your loving + + Adeline Fielding. + +Anne's eyes filled with tears. At last she saw Adeline Fielding +completely, as she was, without any fascination. She thought: "She's +marrying to get away from Colin. She's left him to me to look after. How +could she leave him? How could she?" + +Anne didn't go up for the wedding. She told Adeline it wasn't much use +asking her when she knew that Colin couldn't be left. + +"Or, if you like, that _I_ can't leave him." + +Her father wrote back: + + Your Aunt Adeline thinks you reproach her for leaving Colin. I told her + you were too intelligent to do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's + the best thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of looking + after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be looked after herself, and + you ought to be grateful to me for relieving you of the job. + + But I don't like your being alone down there with Colin. If he isn't + better we must send him to a nursing home. + + Are you wondering whether we're going to be happy? + + We shall be so long as I let her have her own way; which is what I mean + to do. + + Your very affectionate father, + + JOHN SEVERN. + + +And Anne answered: + + DEAREST DADDY,--I shouldn't dream of reproaching Aunt Adeline any more + than I should reproach a pussycat for catching birds. + + Look after her as much as you please--_I_ shall look after Colin. + Whether you like it or not, darling, you can't stop me. And I won't let + Colin go to a nursing home. It would be the worst possible place for + him. Ask Eliot. Besides, he _is_ better. + + I'm ever so glad you're going to be happy. + + Your loving + + ANNE. + + + +VIII + + +ANNE AND COLIN + +i + +Autumn had passed. Colin's couch was drawn up before the fire in the +drawing-room. Anne sat with him there. + +He was better. He could listen for half an hour at a time when Anne read +to him--poems, short stories, things that were ended before Colin tired +of them. He ate and drank hungrily and his body began to get back its +strength. + +At noon, when the winter sun shone, he walked, first up and down the +terrace, then round and round the garden, then to the beech trees at the +top of the field, and then down the hill to the Manor Farm. On mild days +she drove him about the country in the dog-cart. She had tried motoring +but had had to give it up because Colin was frightened at the hooting, +grinding and jarring of the car. + +As winter went on Anne found that Colin was no worse in cold or wet +weather. He couldn't stand the noise and rush of the wind, but his +strange malady took no count of rain or snow. He shivered in the clear, +still frost, but it braced him all the same. Driving or strolling, she +kept him half the day in the open air. + +She saw that he liked best the places they had gone to when they were +children--the Manor Farm fields, High Slaughter, and Hayes Mill. They +were always going to the places where they had done things together. +When Colin talked sanely he was back in those times. He was safe there. +There, if anywhere, he could find his real self and be well. + +She had the feeling that Colin's future lay somewhere through his past. +If only she could get him back there, so that he could be what he had +been. There must be some way of joining up that time to this, if only +she could find a bridge, a link. She didn't know that she was the way, +she was the link binding his past to his present, bound up with his +youth, his happiness, his innocence, with the years before Queenie and +the War. + +She didn't know what Queenie had done to him. She didn't know that the +war had only finished what Queenie had begun. That was Colin's secret, +the hidden source of his fear. + +But he was safe with Anne because they were not in love with each other. +She left his senses at rest, and her affection never called for any +emotional response. She took him away from his fear; she kept him back +in his childhood, in his boyhood, in the years before Queenie, with a +continual, "Do you remember?" + +"Do you remember the walk to High Slaughter?" + +"Do you remember the booby-trap we set for poor Pinkney?" + +That was dangerous, for poor Pinkney was at the War. + +"Do you remember Benjy?" + +"Yes, rather." + +But Benjy was dangerous, too; for Jerrold had given him to her. She +could feel Colin shying. + +"He had a butterfly smut," he said. "Hadn't he? ...Do you remember how I +used to come and see you at Cheltenham?" + +"And Grannie and Aunt Emily, and how you used to play on their piano. +And how Grannie jumped when you came down crash on those chords in the +Waldstein." + +"Do you mean the _presto?_" + +"Yes. The last movement." + +"No wonder she jumped. I should jump now." He turned his mournful face +to her. "Anne--I shall never be able to play again." + +There was danger everywhere. In the end all ways led back to Colin's +malady. + +"Oh yes, you wall when you're quite strong." + +"I shall never be stronger." + +"You will. You're stronger already." + +She knew he was stronger. He could sleep three hours on end now and he +had left off screaming. + +And still the doors were left open between their rooms at night. He was +still afraid to sleep alone; he liked to know that she was there, close +to him. + +Instead of the dreams, instead of the sudden rushing, crashing horror, +he was haunted by a nameless dread. Dread of something he didn't know, +something that waited for him, something he couldn't face. Something +that hung over him at night, that was there with him in the morning, +that came between him and the light of the sun. + +Anne kept it away. Anne came between it and him. He was unhappy and +frightened when Anne was not there. + +It was always, "You're _not_ going, Anne?" + +"Yes. But I'm coming back." + +"How soon?" + +And she would say, "An hour;" or, "Half an hour," or, "Ten minutes." + +"Don't be longer." + +"No." + +And then: "I don't know how it is, Anne. But everything seems all right +when you're there, and all wrong when you're not." + + +ii + +The Manor Farm house stands in the hamlet of Upper Speed. It has the +grey church and churchyard beside it and looks across the deep road +towards Sutton's farm. + +The beautiful Jacobean house, the church and church-yard, Sutton's farm +and the rectory, the four cottages and the Mill, the river and its +bridge, lie close together in the small flat of the valley. Green +pastures slope up the hill behind them to the north; pink-brown arable +lands, ploughed and harrowed, are flung off to either side, east and +west. + +Northwards the valley is a slender slip of green bordering the slender +river. Southwards, below the bridge, the water meadows widen out past +Sutton's farm. From the front windows of the Manor Farm house you see +them, green between the brown trunks of the elms on the road bank. From +the back you look out across orchard and pasture to the black, still +water and yellow osier beds above the Mill. Beyond the water a double +line of beeches, bare delicate branches, rounded head after rounded +head, climbs a hillock in a steep curve, to part and meet again in a +thick ring at the top. + +The house front stretches along a sloping grass plot, the immense porch +built out like a wing with one ball-topped gable above it, a smaller +gable in the roof behind. On either side two rows of wide black windows, +heavy browed, with thick stone mullions. + +Barker, Jerrold Fielding's agent, used to live there; but before the +spring of nineteen sixteen Barker had joined up, Wyck Manor had been +turned into a home for convalescent soldiers, and Anne was living with +Colin at the Manor Farm. + +Half of her Ilford land had been taken by the government; and she had +let the rest together with the house and orchard. Instead of her own +estate she had the Manor to look after now. It had been impossible in +war-time to fill Barker's place, and Anne had become Jerrold's agent. +She had begun with a vague promise to give a look round now and then; +but when the spring came she found herself doing Barker's work, keeping +the farm accounts, ordering fertilizers, calculating so many +hundredweights of superphosphate of lime, or sulphate of ammonia, or +muriate of potash to the acre; riding about on Barker's horse, looking +after the ploughing; plodding through the furrows of the hill slopes to +see how the new drillers were working; going the round of the sheep-pens +to keep count of the sick ewes and lambs; carrying the motherless lambs +in her arms from the fold to the warm kitchen. + +She went through February rain and snow, through March wind and sleet, +and through the mists of the low meadows; her feet were loaded with +earth from the ploughed fields; her nostrils filled with the cold, rich +smell of the wet earth; the rank, sharp smell of swedes, the dry, +pungent smell of straw and hay; the thick, oily, woolly smell of the +folds, the warm, half-sweet, half sour smell of the cattle sheds, of +champed fodder, of milky cow's breath; the smell of hot litter and dung. + +At five and twenty she had reached the last clear decision of her +beauty. Dressed in riding coat and breeches, her body showed more +slender and more robust than ever. Rain, sun and wind were cosmetics to +her firm, smooth skin. Her eyes were bright dark, washed with the clean +air. + +On her Essex farm and afterwards at the War she had learned how to +handle men. Sulky Curtis, who grumbled under Barker's rule, surrendered +to Anne without a scowl. When Anne came riding over the Seven Acre +field, lazy Ballinger pulled himself together and ploughed through the +two last furrows that he would have left for next day in Barker's time. +Even for Ballinger and Curtis she had smiles that atoned for her little +air of imperious command. + +And Colin followed her about the farmyard and up the fields till he +tired and turned back. She would see him standing by the gate she had +passed through, looking after her with the mournful look he used to have +when he was a little boy and they left him behind. + +He would stand looking till Anne's figure, black on her black horse, +stood up against the skyline from the curve of the round-topped hill. It +dipped; it dipped and disappeared and Colin would go slowly home. + +At the first sound of her horse's hoofs in the yard he came out to meet +her. + +One day he said to her, "Jerrold'll be jolly pleased with what you've +done when he comes home." + +And then, "If he ever can be pleased with anything again." + +It was the first time he had said Jerrold's name. + +"That's what's been bothering me," he went on. "I can't think how +Jerrold's going to get over it. You remember what he was like when +Father died?" + +"Yes." She remembered. + +"Well--what's the War going to do to him? Look what it's done to me. He +minds things so much more than I do." + +"It doesn't take everybody the same way, Colin." + +"I don't suppose Jerrold'll get shell-shock. But he might get something +worse. Something that'll hurt him more. He must mind so awfully." + +"You may be sure he won't mind anything that could happen to himself." + +"Of course he won't. But the things that'll happen to other people. +Seeing the other chaps knocked about and killed." + +"He minds most the things that happen to the people he cares about. To +you and Eliot. They're the sort of things he can't face. He'd pretend +they couldn't happen. But the war's so big that he can't say it isn't +happening; he's got to stand up to it. And the things you stand up to +don't hurt you. I feel certain he'll come through all right." + +That was the turning point in Colin's malady. She thought: "If he can +talk about Jerrold he's getting well." + +The next day a letter came to her from Jerrold. He wrote: "I wish to +goodness I could get leave. I don't want it _all_ the time. I'm quite +prepared to stick this beastly job for any reasonable period; but a +whole year without leave, it's a bit thick..." + +"About Colin. Didn't I tell you he'd be all right? And it's all _you_, +Anne. You've made him; you needn't pretend you haven't. I want most +awfully to see you again. There are all sorts of things I'd like to say +to you, but I can't write 'em." + +She thought: "He's got over it at last, then. He won't be afraid of me +any more." + +Somehow, since the war she had felt that Jerrold would come back to her. +It was as if always, deep down and in secret, she had known that he +belonged to her and that she belonged to him as no other person could; +that whatever happened and however long a time he kept away from her he +would come back at some time, in some way. She couldn't distinguish +between Jerrold and her sense of Jerrold; and as nothing could separate +her from the sense of him, nothing could separate her from Jerrold +himself. He had part in the profound and secret life of her blood and +nerves and brain. + + + +IX + + +JERROLD + +i + +At last, in March, nineteen-sixteen, Jerrold had got leave. + +Anne was right; Jerrold had come through because he had had to stand up +to the War and face it. He couldn't turn away. It was too stupendous a +fact to be ignored or denied or in any way escaped from. And as he had +to "take" it, he took it laughing. Once in the thick of it, Jerrold was +sustained by his cheerful obstinacy, his inability to see the things he +didn't want to see. He admitted that there was a war, the most appalling +war, if you liked, that had ever been; but he refused, all the time, to +believe that the Allies would lose it; he refused from moment to moment +to believe that they could be beaten in any single action; he denied the +possibility of disaster to his own men. Disaster to himself--possibly; +probably, in theory; but not in practice. Not when he turned back in the +rain of the enemy's fire to find his captain who had dropped wounded +among the dead, when he swung him over his shoulder and staggered to the +nearest stretcher. He knew he would get through. It was inconceivable to +Jerrold that he should not get through. Even in his fifth engagement, +when his men broke and gave back in front of the German parapet, and he +advanced alone, shouting to them to come on, it was inconceivable that +they should not come on. And when they saw him, running forward by +himself, they gathered again and ran after him and the trench was taken +in a mad rush. + +Jerrold got his captaincy and two weeks' leave together. He had meant to +spend three days in London with his mother, three days in Yorkshire with +the Durhams, and the rest of his time at Upper Speed with Anne and +Colin. He was not quite sure whether he wanted to go to the Durhams. +More than anything he wanted to see Anne again. + +His last unbearable memory of her was wiped out by five years of India +and a year of war. He remembered the child Anne who played with him, the +girl Anne who went about with him, and the girl woman he had found in +her room at dawn. He tried to join on to her the image of the Anne that +Eliot wrote to him about, who had gone out to the war and come back from +it to look after Colin. He was in love with this image of her and ready +to be in love again with the real Anne. He would go back now and find +her and make her care for him. + +There had been a time, after his father's death, when he had tried to +make himself think that Anne had never cared for him, because he didn't +want to think she cared. Now that he did want it he wasn't sure. + +Not so sure as he was about little Maisie Durham. He knew Maisie cared. +That was why she had gone out to India. It was also why she had been +sent back again. He was afraid it might be why the Durhams had asked him +to stay with them as soon as he had leave. If that was so, he wasn't +sure whether he ought to stay with them, seeing that he didn't care for +Maisie. But since they had asked him, well, he could only suppose that +the Durhams knew what they were about. Perhaps Maisie had got over it. +The little thing had lots of sense. + +It hadn't been his fault in the beginning, Maisie's caring. Afterwards, +perhaps, in India, when he had let himself see more of her than he would +have done if he had known she cared; but that, again, was hardly his +fault since he didn't know. You don't see these things unless you're on +the lookout for them, and you're not on the lookout unless you're a +conceited ass. Then when he did see it, when he couldn't help seeing, +after other people had seen and made him see, it had been too late. + +But this was five years ago, and of course Maisie had got over it. There +would be somebody else now. Perhaps he would go down to Yorkshire. +Perhaps he wouldn't. + +At this point Jerrold realised that it depended on Anne. + +But before he saw Anne he would have to see his mother. And before he +saw his mother his mother had seen Anne and Colin. + + +ii + +And while Anne in Gloucestershire was answering Jerrold's letter, +Jerrold sat in the drawing-room of the house in Montpelier Square and +talked to his mother. They talked about Colin and Anne. + +"What's Colin's wife doing?" he said. + +"Queenie? She's driving a field ambulance car in Belgium." + +"Why isn't she looking after Colin?" + +"That isn't in Queenie's line. Besides--" + +"Besides what?" + +"Well, to tell the truth, I don't suppose she'll live with Colin +after--" + +"After _what_?" + +"Well, after Colin's living with Anne." + +Jerrold stiffened. He felt the blood rushing to his heart, betraying +him. His face was God only knew what awful colour. + +"You don't mean to say they--" + +"I don't mean to say I blame them, poor darlings. What were they to do?" + +"But" (he almost stammered it) "you don't know--you can't know--it +doesn't follow." + +"Well, of course, my dear, they haven't _told_ me. You don't shout these +things from the house-tops. But what is one to think? There they are; +there they've been for the last five months, living together at the +Farm, absolutely alone. Anne won't leave him. She won't have anybody +there. If you tell her it's not proper she laughs in your face. And +Colin swears he won't go back to Queenie. What _is_ one to think?" + +Jerrold covered his face with his hands. He didn't know. + +His mother went on in a voice of perfect sweetness. "Don't imagine I +think a bit the worse of Anne. She's been simply splendid. I never saw +anything like her devotion. She's brought Colin round out of the most +appalling state. We've no business to complain of a situation we're all +benefitting by. Some people can do these things and you forgive them. +Whatever Anne does or doesn't do she'll always be a perfect darling. As +for Queenie, I don't consider her for a minute. She's been simply asking +for it." + +He wondered whether it were really true. It didn't follow that Anne and +Colin were lovers because his mother said so; even supposing that she +really thought it. + +"You don't go telling everybody, I hope?" he said. + +"My dear Jerrold, what do you think I'm made of? I haven't even told +Anne's father. I've only told you because I thought you ought to know." + +"I see; you want to put me off Anne?" + +"I don't _want_ to. But it would, wouldn't it?" + +"Oh Lord, yes, if it was true. Perhaps it isn't." + +"Jerry dear, it may be awfully immoral of me, but for Colin's sake I +can't help hoping that it is. I did so want Anne to marry Colin--really +he's only right when he's with her--and if Queenie divorces him I +suppose she will." + +"But, mother, you _are_ going ahead. You may be quite wrong." + +"I may. You can only suppose--" + +"How on earth am I to know? I can't ask them." + +"No, you can't ask them." + +Of course he couldn't. He couldn't go to Colin and say, "Are you Anne's +lover?" He couldn't go to Anne and say, "Are you Colin's mistress?" + +"If they wanted us to know," said Adeline, "they'd have told us. There +you are." + +"Supposing it isn't true, do you imagine he cares for her?" + +"Yes, Jerrold. I'm quite, quite sure of that. I was down there last week +and saw them. He can't bear her out of his sight one minute. He couldn't +not care." + +"And Anne?" + +"Oh, well, Anne isn't going to give herself away. But I'm certain... +Would she stick down there, with everybody watching them and thinking +things and talking, if she didn't care so much that nothing matters?" + +"But would she--would she--" + +The best of his mother was that in these matters her mind jumped to meet +yours halfway. You hadn't got to put things into words. + +"My dear, if you think she wouldn't, supposing she cared enough, you +don't know Anne." + +"I shall go down," he said, "and see her." + +"If you do, for goodness' sake be careful. Even supposing there's +nothing in it, you mustn't let Colin see you think there is. He'd feel +then that he ought to leave her for fear of compromising her. And if he +leaves her he'll be as bad as ever again. And _I_ can't manage him. +Nobody can manage him but Anne. That's how they've tied our hands. We +can't say anything." + +"I see." + +"After all, Jerrold, it's very simple. If they're innocent we must leave +them in their innocence. And if they're not----" + +"If they're not?" + +"Well, we must leave them in _that_." + +Jerrold laughed. But he was not in the least amused. + + +iii + +He went down to Wyck the next day; he couldn't wait till the day after. + +Not that he had the smallest hope of Anne now. Even if his mother's +suspicion were unfounded, she had made it sufficiently clear to him that +Anne was necessary to Colin; and, that being so, the chances were that +Colin cared for her. In these matters his mother was not such a fool as +to be utterly mistaken. On every account, therefore, he must be prepared +to give Anne up. He couldn't take her away from Colin, and he wouldn't +if he could. It was his own fault. What was done was done six years ago. +He should have loved Anne then. + +Going down in the train he thought of her, a little girl with short +black hair, holding a black-and-white rabbit against her breast, a +little girl with a sweet mouth ready for kisses, who hung herself round +his neck with sudden, loving arms. A big girl with long black hair tied +in an immense black bow, a girl too big for kisses. A girl sitting in +her room between her white bed and the window with a little black cat in +her arms. Her platted hair lay in a thick black rope down her back. He +remembered how he had kissed her; he remembered the sliding of her sweet +face against his, the pressure of her darling head against his shoulder, +the salt taste of her tears. It was inconceivable that he had not loved +Anne then. Why hadn't he? Why had he let his infernal cowardice stop +him? Eliot had loved her. + +Then he remembered Colin. Little Col-Col running after them down the +field, calling to them to take him with them; Colin's hands playing; +Colin's voice singing _Lord Rendal_. He tried to think of Queenie, the +woman Colin had married. He had no image of her. He could see nothing +but Colin and Anne. + +She was there alone at the station to meet him. She came towards him +along the platform. Their eyes looked for each other. Something choked +his voice back. She spoke first. + +"Jerrold------" + +"Anne." A strange, thick voice deep down in his throat. + +Their hands clasped one into the other, close and strong. + +"Colin wanted to come, but I wouldn't let him. It would have been too +much for him. He might have cried or something ... You mustn't mind if +he cries when he sees you. He isn't quite right yet." + +"No, but he's better." + +"Ever so much better. He can do things on the farm now. He looks after +the lambs and the chickens and the pigs. It's good for him to have +something to do." + +Jerrold agreed that it was good. + +They had reached the Manor Farm now. + +"Don't take any notice if he cries," she said. + +Colin waited for him in the hall of the house. He was trying hard to +control himself, but when he saw Jerrold coming up the path he broke +down in a brief convulsive crying that stopped suddenly at the touch of +Jerrold's hand. + +Anne left them together. + + +iv + +"Don't go, Anne." + +Colin called her back when she would have left them, again after dinner. + +"Don't you want Jerrold to yourself?" she said. + +"We don't want you to go, do we, Jerrold?" + +"Rather not." + +Jerrold found himself looking at them all the time. He had tried to +persuade himself that what his mother had told him was not true. But he +wasn't sure. Look as he would, he was not sure. + +If only his mother hadn't told him, he might have gone on believing in +what she had called their innocence. But she had shown him what to look +for, and for the life of him he couldn't help seeing it at every turn: +in Anne's face, in the way she looked at Colin, the way she spoke to +him; in her kindness to him, her tender, quiet absorption. In the way +Colin's face turned after her as she came and went; in his restlessness +when she was not there; in the peace, the sudden smoothing of his vexed +brows, when having gone she came back again. + +Supposing it were true that they-- + +He couldn't bear it to be true; his mind struggled against the truth of +it, but if it _were_ true he didn't blame them. So far from being untrue +or even improbable, it seemed to Jerrold the most likely thing in the +world to have happened. It had happened to so many people since the war +that he couldn't deny its likelihood. There was only one thing that +could have made it impossible--if Anne had cared for him. And what +reason had he to suppose she cared? After six years? After he had told +her he was trying to get away from her? He had got away; and he saw a +sort of dreadful justice in the event that made it useless for him to +come back. If anybody was to blame it was himself. Himself and Queenie, +that horrible girl Colin had married. + +When he asked himself whether it was the sort of thing that Anne would +be likely to do he thought: Why not, if she loved him, if she wanted to +make him happy? How could he tell what Anne would or would not do? She +had said long ago that he couldn't, that she might do anything. + +They spent the evening talking, by fits and starts, with long silences +in between. They talked about the things that happened before the war, +before Colin's marriage, the things they had done together. They talked +about the farm and Anne's work, about Barker and Curtis and Ballinger, +about Mrs. Sutton who watched them from her house across the road. + +Mrs. Sutton had once been Colin's nurse up at the Manor: she had married +old Sutton after his first wife's death; old Sutton who wouldn't die and +let Anne have his farm. And now she watched them as if she were afraid +of what they might do next. + +"Poor old Nanna," Jerrold said. + +"Goodness knows what she thinks of us," said Anne. + +"It doesn't matter what she thinks," said Colin. + +And they laughed; they laughed; and Jerrold was not quite sure, yet. + +But before the night was over he thought he was. + +They had given him the little room in the gable. It led out of Colin's +room. And there on the chimneypiece he saw an old photograph of himself +at the age of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given it to +Anne on the last day of the midsummer holidays, nineteen hundred. Also +he found a pair of Anne's slippers under the bed, and, caught in a crack +of the dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading out of +Colin's was Anne's room. + +And Colin called out to him, "Do you mind leaving the door open, Jerry? +I can't sleep if it's shut." + + +v + +It was Jerrold's second day. He and Anne climbed the steep beech walk to +the top of the hillock and sat there under the trees. Up the fields on +the opposite rise they could see the grey walls and gables of the Manor, +and beside it their other beech ring at the top of the last field. + +They were silent for a while. He was intensely aware of her as she +turned her head round, slowly, to look at him, straight and full. + +And the sense of his nearness came over her, soaking in deeper, swamping +her brain. Her wide open eyes darkened; her breathing came in tight, +short jerks; her nerves quivered. She wondered whether he could feel +their quivering, whether he could hear her jerking breath, whether he +could see something queer about her eyes. But she had to look at him, +not shyly, furtively, but straight and full, taking him in. + +He was changed. The war had changed him. His face looked harder, the +mouth closer set under the mark of the little clipped fawn-brown +moustache. His eyes that used to flash their blue so gayly, to rest so +lightly, were fixed now, dark and heavy with memory. They had seen too +much. They would never lose that dark memory of the things they had +seen. She wondered, was Colin right? Had the war done worse things to +Jerrold than it had done to him? He would never tell her. + +"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "did you have a good time in India?" + +"I suppose so. I dare say I thought I had." + +"And you hadn't?" + +"Well, I can't conceive how I could have had." + +"You mean it seems so long ago." + +"No, I don't mean that." + +"You've forgotten." + +"I don't mean that, either." + +Silence. + +"Look here, Anne, I want to know about Colin. Has he been very bad?" + +"Yes, he has." + +"How bad?" + +"So bad that sometimes I was glad you weren't there to see him. You +remember when he was a kid, how frightened he used to be at night. Well, +he's been like that all the time. He's like that now, only he's a bit +better. He doesn't scream now.... All the time he kept on worrying about +you. He only told me that the other day. He seemed to think the war must +have done something more frightful to you than it had done to him; he +said, because you'd mind it more. I told him it wasn't the sort of thing +you'd mind most." + +"It isn't the sort of thing it's any good minding. I don't suppose I +minded more than the other chaps. If anything had happened to you, or +him, or Eliot, I'd have minded that." + +"I know. That's what I told him. I knew you'd come through." + +"Eliot was dead right about Colin. He knew he wouldn't. He ought never +to have gone out." + +"He wanted so awfully to go. But Eliot could have stopped him if it +hadn't been for Queenie. She hunted and hounded him out. She told him he +was funking. Fancy Colin funking!" + +"What's Queenie like?" + +"She's like that. She never funks herself, but she wants to make out +that everybody else does." + +"Do you like Queenie?" + +"No. I hate her. I don't mind her hounding him out so much since she +went herself; I _do_ mind her leaving him. Do you know, she's never even +tried to come and see him." + +"Good God! what a beast the woman must be. What on earth made him marry +her?" + +"He was frightfully in love. An awful sort of love that wore him out and +made him wretched. And now he's afraid for his life of her. I believe +he's afraid of the war ending because then she'll come back." + +"And if she does come back?" + +"She may try and take Colin away from me. But she shan't. She can't take +him if he doesn't want to go. She left him to me to look after and I +mean to stick to him. I won't have him frightened and made all ill again +just when I've got him well." + +"I'm afraid you've had a very hard time." + +"Not so hard as you think." + +She smiled a mysterious, quiet smile, as if she contemplated some happy +secret. He thought he knew it, Anne's secret. + +"Do you think it's funny of me to be living here with Colin?" + +He laughed. + +"I suppose it's all right. You always had pluck enough for anything." + +"It doesn't take pluck to stick to Colin." + +"Moral pluck." + +"No. Not even moral." + +"You were always fond of him, weren't you?" + +That was about as far as he dare go. + +She smiled her strange smile again. + +"Yes. I was always fond of him.... You see, he wants me more than +anybody else ever did or ever will." + +"I'm not so sure about that. But he always did get what he wanted." + +"Oh, does he! How about Queenie?" + +"Even Queenie. I suppose he wanted her at the time." + +"He doesn't want her now. Poor Colin." + +"You mustn't ask me to pity him." + +"Ask you? He'd hate you to pity him. I'd hate you to pity _me_." + +"I shouldn't dream of pitying you, any more than I should dream of +criticising you." + +"Oh, you may criticise as much as you like." + +"No. Whatever you did it would make no difference. I should know it was +right because you did it." + +"It wouldn't be. I do heaps of wrong things, but _this_ is right." + +"I'm sure it is." "Here's Colin," she said. + +He had come out to look for them. He couldn't bear to be alone. + + +vi + +Jerrold had gone to Sutton's Farm to say good-bye to their old nurse, +Nanny Sutton. + +Nanny talked about the war, about the young men who had gone from Wyck +and would not come back, about the marvel of Sutton's living on through +it all, and he so old and feeble. She talked about Colin and Anne. + +"Oh, Master Jerrold," she said, "I do think it's a pity she should be +livin' all alone with Mr. Colin like this 'ere." + +"They're all right, Nanny. You needn't worry." + +"Well--well, Miss Anne was always one to go her own way and make it seem +the right way." + +"You may be perfectly sure it is the right way." + +"I'm not sayin' as 'tisn't. And I dunnow what Master Colin'd a done +without her. But it do make people talk. There's a deal of strange +things said in the place." + +"Don't listen to them." + +"Eh dear, I'll not 'ear a word. When anybody says anything to me I tell +'em straight they'd oughter be ashamed of themselves, back-bitin' and +slanderin'." + +"That's right, Nanny, you give it them in the neck." + +"If it'd only end in talk, but there's been harm done to the innocent. +There's Mr. and Mrs. Kimber. Kimber, 'e's my 'usband's cousing." Nanny +paused. + +"What about him?" + +"Well, 'tis this way. They're doin' for Miss Anne, livin' in the house +with her. Kimber, 'e sees to the garden and Mrs. Kimber she cooks and +that. And Kimber--that's my 'usband's cousin--'e was gardener at the +vicarage. And now 'e's lost his job along of Master Colin and Miss +Anne." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well, sir, 'tis the vicar. 'E says they 'adn't oughter be livin' in the +house with Miss Anne, because of the talk there's been. So 'e says +Kimber must choose between 'em. And Kimber, 'e says 'e'd have minded +what parson said if it had a bin a church matter or such like, but +parson or no parson, 'e says 'e's his own master an' 'e won't have no +interferin' with him and his missus. So he's lost his job." + +"Poor old Kimber. What a beastly shame." + +"Eh, 'tis a shame to be sure." + +"Never mind; I can give him a bigger job at the Manor." + +"Oh, Master Jerrold, if you would, it'd be a kindness, I'm sure. And +Kimber 'e deserves it, the way they've stuck to Miss Anne." + +"He does indeed. It's pretty decent of them. I'll see about that before +I go." + +"Thank you, sir. Sutton and me thought maybe you'd do something for him, +else I shouldn't have spoken. And if there's anything I can do for Miss +Anne I'll do it. I've always looked on her as one of you. But 'tis a +pity, all the same." + +"You mustn't say that, Nanny. I tell you it's all perfectly right." + +"Well, I shall never say as 'tisn't. No, nor think it. You can trust me +for that, Master Jerrold." + +He thought: Poor old Nanny. She lies like a brick. + + +vii + +He said to himself that he would never know the truth about Anne and +Colin. If he went to them and asked them he would be no nearer knowing. +They would have to lie to him to save each other. In any case, his +mother had made it clear to him that as long as Anne had to look after +Colin he couldn't ask them. If they were innocent their innocence must +be left undisturbed. If they were not innocent, well--he had lost the +right to know it. Besides, he was sure, as sure as if they had told him. + +He knew how it would be. Colin's wife would come home and she would +divorce Colin and he would marry Anne. So far as Jerrold could see, that +was his brother's only chance of happiness and sanity. + +As for himself, there was nothing he could do now but clear out and +leave them. + +And, as he had no desire to go back to his mother and hear about Anne +and Colin all over again, he went down to the Durhams' in Yorkshire for +the rest of his leave. + +He hadn't been there five days before he and Maisie were engaged; and +before the two weeks were up he had married her. + + + +X + + +ELIOT + +i + +Eliot stood in the porch of the Manor Farm house. There was nobody there +to greet him. Behind him on the oak table in the hall the wire he had +sent lay unopened. + +It was midday in June. + +All round the place the air was sweet with the smell of the mown hay, +and from the Broad Pasture there came the rattle and throb of the +mowing-machines. + +Eliot went down the road and through the gate into the hay-field. Colin +and Anne were there. Anne at the top of the field drove the mower, +mounted up on the shell-shaped iron seat, white against the blue sky. +Colin at the bottom, slender and tall above the big revolving wheel, +drove the rake. The tedding machine, driven by a farm hand, went +between. Its iron-toothed rack caught the new-mown hay, tossed it and +scattered it on the field. Beside the long glistening swaths the cut +edge of the hay stood up clean and solid as a wall. Above it the raised +plane of the grass-tops, brushed by the wind, quivered and swayed, +whitish green, greenish white, in a long shimmering undulation. + +Eliot went on to meet Anne and Colin as they turned and came up the +field again. + +When they saw him they jumped down and came running. + +"Eliot, you never told us." + +"I wired at nine this morning." + +"There's nobody in the house and we've not been in since breakfast at +seven," Colin said. + +"It's twelve now. Time you knocked off for lunch, isn't it?" + +"Are you all right, Eliot?" said Anne. + +"Rather." + +He gave a long look at them, at their sun-burnt faces, at their clean, +slender grace, Colin in his cricketing flannels, and Anne in her +land-girl's white-linen coat, knickerbockers, and grey wideawake. + +"Colin doesn't look as if there was much the matter with him. He might +have been farming all his life." + +"So I have," said Colin; "considering that I haven't lived till now." + +And they went back together towards the house. + + +ii + +Colin's and Anne's work was done for the day. The hay in the Broad +Pasture was mown and dried. Tomorrow it would be heaped into cocks and +carried to the stackyard. + +It was the evening of Eliot's first day. He and Anne sat out under the +apple trees in the orchard. + +"What on earth have you done to Colin?" he said. "I expected to find him +a perfect wreck." + +"He was pretty bad three months ago. But it's good for him being down +here in the place he used to be happy in. He knows he's safe here. It's +good for him doing jobs about the farm, too." + +"I imagine it's good for him being with you." + +"Oh, well, he knows he's safe with me." + +"Very safe. He owes it to you that he's sane now. You must have been +astonishingly wise with him." + +"It didn't take much wisdom. Not more than it used to take when he was a +little frightened kid. That's all he was when he came back from the war, +Eliot." + +"The point is that you haven't treated him like a kid. You've made a man +of him again. You've given him a man's life and a man's work." + +"That's what I want to do. When he's trained he can look after Jerrold's +land. You know poor Barker died last month of septic pneumonia. The camp +was full of it." + +"I know." + +"What do you think of my training Colin?" + +"It's all right for him, Anne. But how about you?" + +"Me? Oh, _I'm_ all right. You needn't worry about me." + +"I do worry about you. And your father's worrying." + +"Dear old Daddy. It _is_ silly of him. As if anything mattered but +Colin." + +"_You_ matter. You see, your father doesn't like your being here alone +with him. He's afraid of what people may think." + +"I'm not. I don't care what people think. They've no business to." + +"No; but they will, and they do...You know what I mean, Anne, don't +you?" + +"I suppose you mean they think I'm Colin's mistress. Is that it?" + +"I'm afraid it is. They can't think anything else. It's beastly of them, +I know, but this is a beastly world, dear, and it doesn't do to go on +behaving as if it wasn't." + +"I don't care. If people are beastly it's their look-out, not mine. The +beastlier they are the less I care." + +"I don't suppose you care if the vicar's wife won't call or if Lady +Corbett and the Hawtreys cut you. But that's why." + +"Is it? I never thought about it. I'm too busy to go and see them and I +supposed they were too busy to come and see me. I certainly don't care." + +"If it was people you cared about?" + +"Nobody I care about would think things like that of me." + +"Anne dear, I'm not so sure." + +"Then it shows how much they care about _me_." + +"But it's because they care." + +"I can't help it. They may care, but they don't know. They can't know +anything about me if they think that." + +"And you honestly don't mind?" + +"I mind what _you_ think. But you don't think it, Eliot, do you?" + +"I? Good Lord no! Do you mind what mother thinks?" + +"Yes, I mind. But it doesn't matter very much." + +"It would matter if Jerrold thought it." + +"Oh Eliot--_does_ he?" + +"I don't suppose he thinks precisely that. But I'm pretty sure he +thought you and Colin cared for each other." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"His marrying Maisie like that." + +"Why shouldn't he marry her?" + +"Because it's you he cares about." + +Eliot's voice was quiet and heavy. She knew that what he said was true. +That quiet, heavy voice was the voice of her own innermost conviction. +Yet under the shock of it she sat silent, not looking at him, looking +with wide, fixed eyes at the pattern the apple boughs made on the sky. + +"How do you know?" she said, presently. + +"Because of the way he talked to mother before he came to see you here. +She says he was frightfully upset when she told him about you and +Colin." + +"She told him _that?_" + +"Apparently." + +"What did she do it for, Eliot?" + +"What does mother do anything for? I imagine she wanted to put Jerrold +off so that you could stick on with Colin. You've taken him off her +hands and she wants him kept off." + +"So she told him I was Colin's mistress." + +"Mind you, she doesn't think a bit the worse of you for that. She +admires you for it no end." + +"Do you suppose I care what she thinks? It's her making Jerrold think +it...Eliot, how could she?" + +"She could, because she only sees things as they affect herself." + +"Do you believe she really thinks it?" + +"She's made herself think it because she wanted to." + +"But why--why should she want to?" + +"I've told you why. She's afraid of having to look after Colin. I've no +illusions about mother. She's always been like that. She wouldn't see +what she was doing to you. Before she did it she'd persuaded herself +that it was Colin and not Jerrold that you cared for. And she wouldn't +do it deliberately at all. I know it has all the effect of low cunning, +but it isn't. It's just one of her sudden movements. She'd rush into it +on a blind impulse." + +Anne saw it all, she saw that Adeline had slandered her to Jerrold and +to Eliot, that she had made use of her love for Colin, which was her +love for Jerrold, to betray her; that she had betrayed her to safeguard +her own happy life, without pity and without remorse; she had done all +of these things and none of them. They were the instinctive movements of +her funk. Where Adeline's ease and happiness were concerned she was one +incarnate funk. You couldn't think of her as a reasonable and +responsible being, to be forgiven or unforgiven. + +"It doesn't matter how she did it. It's done now," she said. + +"Really, Anne, it was too bad of Colin. He oughtn't to have let you." + +"He couldn't help it, poor darling. He wasn't in a state. Don't put that +into his head. It just had to happen... I don't care, Eliot. If it was +to be done again to-morrow I'd do it. Only, if I'd known, I could have +told Jerrold the truth. The others can think what they like. It'll only +make me stick to Colin all the more. I promised Jerrold I'd look after +him and I shall as long as he wants me. It serves them all right. They +all left him to me--Daddy and Aunt Adeline and Queenie, I mean--and they +can't stop me now." + +"Mother doesn't want to stop you. It's your father." + +"I'll write and tell Daddy. Besides, it's too late. If I left Colin +to-morrow it wouldn't stop the scandal. My reputation's gone and I can't +get it back, can I?" + +"Dear Anne, you don't know how adorable you are without it." + +"Look here, Eliot, what did your mother tell _you_ for?" + +"Same reason. To put me off, too." + +They looked at each other and smiled. Across their memories, across the +years of war, across Anne's agony they smiled. Besides its courage and +its young, candid cynicism, Anne's smile expressed her utter trust in +him. + +"As if," Eliot said, "it would have made the smallest difference." + +"Wouldn't it have?" + +"No, Anne. Nothing would." + +"That's what Jerrold said. And _he_ thought it. I wondered what he +meant." + +"He meant what I mean." + +The moments passed, ticked off by the beating of his heart, time and his +heart beating violently together. Not one of them was his moment, not +one would serve him for what he had to say, falling so close on their +intolerable conversation. He meant to ask Anne to marry him; but if he +did it now she would suspect him of chivalry; it would look as if he +wanted to make up to her for all she had lost through Colin; as if he +wanted more than anything to save her. + +So Eliot, who had waited so long, waited a little longer, till the +evening of his last day. + + +iii + +Anne had gone up with him to Wyck Manor, to see the soldiers. Ever since +they had come there she had taken cream and fruit to them twice a week +from the Farm. Unaware of what was thought of her, she never knew that +the scandal of young Fielding and Miss Severn had penetrated the +Convalescent Home with the fruit and cream. And if she had known it she +would not have stayed away. People's beastliness was no reason why she +shouldn't go where she wanted, where she had always gone. The +Convalescent Home belonged to the Fieldings, and the Fieldings were her +dearest friends who had been turned into relations by her father's +marriage. So this evening, absorbed in the convalescents, she never saw +the matron's queer look at her or her pointed way of talking only to +Eliot. + +Eliot saw it. + +He thought: "It doesn't matter. She's so utterly good that nothing can +touch her. All the same, if she marries me she'll be safe from this sort +of thing." + +They had come to the dip of the valley and the Manor Farm water. + +"Let's go up the beech walk," he said. + +They went up and sat in the beech ring where Anne had sat with Jerrold +three months ago. Eliot never realised how repeatedly Jerrold had been +before him. + +"Anne," he said, "it's more than five years since I asked you to marry +me." + +"Is it, Eliot?" + +"Do you remember I said then I'd never give you up?" + +"I remember. Unless Jerrold got me, you said. Well, he hasn't got me." + +"I wouldn't want you to tie yourself up with me if there was the +remotest chance of Jerrold; but, as there isn't, don't you think--" + +"No, Eliot, I don't." + +"But you do care for me, Anne, a little. I know you do." + +"I care for you a great deal; but not in that sort of way." + +"I'm not asking you to care for me in the way you care for Jerrold. You +may care for me any way you please if you'll only marry me. You don't +know how awfully little I'd be content to take." + +"I shouldn't be content to give it, though. You oughtn't to have +anything but the best." + +"It would be the best for me, you see." + +"Oh no, Eliot, it wouldn't. You only think it would because you're an +angel. It would be awful of me to give so little when I take such a lot. +I know what your loving would be." + +"If you know you must have thought of it. And if you've thought of it--" + +"I've only thought of it to see how impossible it is. It mightn't be if +I could leave off loving Jerrold. But I can't...Eliot, I've got the +queerest feeling about him. I know you'll think me mad, when he's gone +and married somebody else, but I feel all the time as if he hadn't, as +if he belonged to me and always had; and I to him. Whoever Maisie's +married it isn't Jerrold. Not the real Jerrold." + +"The fact remains that she's married him." + +"No. Not him. Only a bit of him. Some bit that doesn't matter." + +"Anne darling, I'd try not to think that." + +"I don't think it. I feel it. Down there, deep inside me. I've always +felt that Jerrold would come back to me and he came back. Then there was +Colin. He'll come back again." + +"Then there'll be Maisie." + +"No, then there won't be Maisie. There won't be anything if he really +comes...Now you see how mad I am. Now you see how awful it would be to +marry me." + +"No, Anne. I see it's the only way to keep you safe." + +"Safe from what? Safe from Jerrold? I don't want to be safe from him. +Eliot, I'm telling you this because you trust me. I want you to see me +as I really am, so that you won't want to marry me any more." + +"Ah, that's not the way to make me. Nothing you say makes any +difference. Nothing you could do would make any difference." + +"Supposing it had been true what your mother said, wouldn't that?" + +"No. If you'd given yourself to Colin I should only have thought it was +your goodness. It would have been good because you did it." + +"How queer. That's what Jerrold said. Then he _did_ love me." + +"I told you he loved you." + +"Then I don't care. Nothing else matters." + +"That's all you have to say to me?" + +"Yes. Unless I lie." + +"You'd lie for Jerrold." + +"For him. Not to him. I should never need to." + +"You've no need to lie to me, dear. I know you better than he does. You +forget that I didn't think what he thought." + +"That only shows that he knew." + +"Knew what?" + +"What I am. What I might do if I really cared." + +"There are things you'd never do. You'd never do anything mean or +dishonourable or cruel." + +"Oh, you don't know what I'd do...Don't worry, Eliot. I shall be too +busy with the land and with Colin to do very much." + +"I'm not worrying." + +All the same he wondered which of them knew Anne best, he or Anne +herself, or Jerrold. + + + +XI + + +INTERIM + +i + +Colin thought with terror of the time when Queenie would come back from +the war. At any moment she might get leave and come; if she had not had +it yet that only made it more likely that she would have it soon. + +The vague horror that waited for him every morning had turned into this +definite fear of Queenie. He was afraid of her temper, of her voice and +eyes, of her crude, malignant thoughts, of her hatred of Anne. More than +anything he was afraid of her power over him, of her vehement, +exhausting love. He was afraid of her beauty. + +One morning, early in September, the wire came. Colin shook with +agitation as he read it. + +"What is it?" Anne said. + +"Queenie. She's got leave. She'll be here today. At four o'clock." + +"Don't you want to see her?" + +"No, I don't." + +"Then you'd better drive over to Kingden and look at those bullocks of +Ledbury's." + +"I don't know anything about bullocks. They ought to be straight lines +from their heads to their tails. That's about all I know." + +"Never mind, you'll have gone to look at bullocks. And you can tell +Ledbury I'm coming over to-morrow. Do you mind driving yourself?" + +Colin did mind. He was afraid to drive by himself; but he was much more +afraid of Queenie. + +"You can take Harry. And leave me to settle Queenie." + +Colin went off with Harry to Chipping Kingden. And at four o'clock +Queenie came. Her hard, fierce eyes stared past Anne, looking for Colin. + +"Where's Colin?" she said. + +"He had to go out, but he'll be back before dinner." + +Presently Queenie asked if she might go upstairs. As they went you could +see her quick, inquisitive eyes sweeping and flashing. + +The door of Colin's room stood open. + +"Is that Colin's room?" + +"Yes." + +She went in, opened the inner door and looked into the gable room. + +"Who sleeps here?" she said. + +"I do," said Anne. + +"You?" + +"Have you any objection?" + +"You might as well sleep in my husband's room." + +"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's asleep or awake." + +"_Can_ you? And, please, how long has this been going on?" + +"I've been sleeping in this room since November. Before that we had our +old rooms at the Manor. There was a passage between, you remember. But +I left the doors wide open." + +"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's asleep or awake." + +"Can you? And, please, how long has this been going on?" + +"I've been sleeping in this room since November. Before that we had our +old rooms at the Manor. There was a passage between, you remember. But I +left the doors wide open." + +"I suppose," said Queenie, with furious calm, "you want me to divorce +him?" + +"Divorce him? Why on earth should you? Just because I looked after him +at night? I _had_ to. There wasn't anybody else. And he was afraid to +sleep alone. He is still. But he's all right as long as he knows I'm +there." + +"You expect me to believe that's all there is in it?" + +"No, I don't, considering what your mind's like." + +"Oh yes, when people do dirty things it's always other people's dirty +minds. Do you imagine I'm a fool, Anne?" + +"You're an awful fool if you think Colin's my lover." + +"I think it, and I say it." + +"If you think it you're a fool. If you say it you're a liar. A damned +liar." + +"And is Colin's mother a liar, too?" + +"Yes, but not a damned one. It would serve you jolly well right, +Queenie, if he _was_ my lover, after the way you left him to me." + +"I didn't leave him to you. I left him to his mother." + +"Anyhow, you left him." + +"I couldn't help it. _You_ were not wanted at the front and I was. I +couldn't leave hundreds of wounded soldiers just for Colin." + +"_I_ had to. He was in an awful state. I've looked after him day and +night; I've got him almost well now, and I think the least you can do is +to keep quiet and let him alone." + +"I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall divorce him as soon as the +war's over." + +"It isn't over yet. And I don't advise you to try. No decent barrister +would touch your case, it's so rotten." + +"Not half so rotten as you'll look when it's in all the papers." + +"You can't frighten me that way." + +"Can't I? I suppose you'll say you were looking, poor darling, if you do +bring your silly old action. Only please don't do it till he's quite +well, or he'll be ill again...I think that's tea going in. Will you go +down?" + +They went down. Tea was laid in the big bare hall. The small round oak +table brought them close together. Anne waited on Queenie with every +appearance of polite attention. Queenie ate and drank in long, fierce +silences; for her hunger was even more imperious than her pride. + +"I don't _want_ to eat your food," she said at last. "I'm only doing it +because I'm starving. I dined with Colin's mother last night. It was the +first dinner I've eaten since I went to the war." + +"You needn't feel unhappy about it," said Anne. "It's Eliot's house and +Jerrold's food. How's Cutler?" + +"Much the same as when you saw him." Queenie answered quietly, but her +face was red. + +"And that Johnnie--what was his name?--who took my place?" + +Queenie's flush darkened. She was holding her mouth so tight that the +thin red line of the lips faded. + +"Noel Fenwick," said Anne, suddenly remembering. + +"What about him?" Queenie's throat moved as if she swallowed something +big and hard. + +"Is he there still?" + +"He was when I left." + +Her angry, defiant eyes were fixed on the open doorway. You could see +she was waiting for Colin, ready to fall on him and tear him as soon as +he came in. + +"Am I to see Colin or not?" she said as she rose. + +"Have you anything to say to him?" + +"Only what I've said to you." + +"Then you won't see him. In fact I think you'd better not see him at +all." + +"You mean he funks it?" + +"I funk it for him. He isn't well enough to be raged at and threatened +with proceedings. It'll upset him horribly and I don't see what good +it'll do you." + +"No more do I. I'm not going to live with him after this. You can tell +him that. Tell him I don't want to see him or speak to him again." + +"I see. You just came down to make a row." + +"You don't suppose I came down to stay with you two?" + +Queenie was so far from coming down to stay that she had taken rooms for +the night at the White Hart in Wyck. Anne drove her there. + + +ii + +Two and a half years passed. Anne's work on the farm filled up her days +and marked them. Her times were ploughing time and the time for sowing: +wheat first, and turnips after the wheat, barley after the turnips, +sainfoin, grass and clover after the barley. Oats in the five-acre field +this year; in the seven-acre field the next. Lambing time, calving time, +cross-ploughing and harrowing, washing and shearing time, time for +hoeing; hay time and harvest. Then threshing time and ploughing again. + +All summer the hard fight against the charlock, year after year the +same. You harrowed it out and ploughed it down and sprayed it with +sulphate of copper; you sowed vetches and winter corn to crowd it out; +and always it sprang up again, flaring in bright yellow stripes and fans +about the hills. The air was sweet with its smooth, delicious smell. + +Always the same clear-cut pattern of the fields; but the colors shifted. +The slender, sharp-pointed triangle that was jade-green last June, this +June was yellow-brown. The square under the dark comb of the plantation +that had been yellow-brown was emerald; the wide-open fan beside it that +had been emerald was pink. By August the emerald had turned to red-gold +and the jade-green to white. + +These changes marked the months and the years, a bright patterned, +imperceptibly moving measure, rolling time off across the hills. + +Nineteen-sixteen, seventeen. Nineteen-eighteen and the armistice. +Nineteen-nineteen and the peace. + + +iii + +In the spring of that year Anne and Colin were still together at the +Manor Farm. He was stronger. But, though he did more and more work every +year, he was still unfit to take over the management himself. +Responsibility fretted him and he tired soon. He could do nothing +without Anne. + +He was now definitely separated from his wife. Queenie had come back +from the war a year ago. As soon as it was over she had begun to rage +and consult lawyers and write letters two or three times a week, +threatening to drag Anne and Colin through the Divorce Court. But Miss +Mullins (once the secretary of Dr. Cutler's Field Ambulance Corps), +recovering at the Farm from an excess of war work, reassured them. +Queenie, she said, was only bluffing. Queenie was not in a position to +bring an action against any husband, she had been too notorious herself. +Miss Mullins had seen things, and she intimated that no defence could +stand against the evidence she could give. + +And in the end Queenie left off talking about divorce and contented +herself with a judicial separation. + +Colin still woke every morning to his dread of some blank, undefined +disaster; but, as if Queenie and the war had made one obsession, he was +no longer haunted by the imminent crash of phantom shells. It was +settled that he was to live with Jerrold and Maisie when they came back +to the Manor, while Anne stayed on by herself at the Farm. + +Every now and then Eliot came down to see them. He had been sent home +early in nineteen-seventeen with a shrapnel wound in his left leg, the +bone shattered. He obtained his discharge at the price of a permanent +limp, and went back to his research work. + +For the last two years he had been investigating trench fever, with +results that were to make him famous. But that was not for another year. + +In February, nineteen-nineteen, Jerrold had come back. He and Maisie had +been living in London ever since he had left the Army, filling in time +till Wyck Manor would be no longer a Home for Convalescent Soldiers. He +had tried to crowd into this interval all the amusement he hadn't had +for four years. His way was to crush down the past with the present; to +pile up engagements against the future, party on party, dances on +suppers and suppers on plays; to dine every evening at some place where +they hadn't dined before; to meet lots of nice amusing people with +demobilised minds who wouldn't talk to him about the war; to let himself +go in bursts of exquisitely imbecile laughter; never to be quiet for an +hour, never to be alone with himself, never to be long alone with +Maisie. + +After the first week of it this sort of thing ceased to amuse him, but +he went on with it because he thought it amused Maisie. + +There was something he missed; something he wanted and hadn't got. At +night, when he lay awake, alone with himself at last, he knew that it +was Anne. + +And he went on laughing and amusing Maisie; and Maisie, with a +heart-breaking sweetness, laughed back at him and declared herself +amused. She had never had such a jolly time in all her life, she said. + +Then, very early in the spring, Maisie went down to her people in +Yorkshire to recover from the jolly time she had had. The convalescent +soldiers had all gone, and Wyck Manor, rather worn and shabby, was Wyck +Manor again. + +Jerrold came back to it alone. + + + +XII + + +COLIN, JERROLD, AND ANNE + +i + +He went through the wide empty house, looking through all the rooms, +trying to find some memory of the happiness he had had there long ago. +The house was full of Anne. Anne's figure crossed the floors before him, +her head turned over her shoulder to see if he were coming; her voice +called to him from the doorways, her running feet sounded on the stairs. +That was her place at the table; that was the armchair she used to curl +up in; just there, on the landing, he had kissed her when he went to +school. + +They had given his mother's room to Maisie, and they had put his things +into the room beyond, his father's room. Everything was in its place as +it had been in his father's time, the great wardrobe, the white +marble-topped washstand, the bed he had died on. He saw him lying there +and Anne going to and fro between the washstand and the bed. The parrot +curtains hung from the windows, straight and still. + +Jerrold shuddered as he looked at these things. + +They had thought that he would want to sleep in that room because he was +married, because Maisie would have the room it led out of. + +But he couldn't sleep in it. He couldn't stay in it a minute; he would +never pass its door without that sickening pang of memory. He moved his +things across the gallery into Anne's room. + +He would sleep there; he would sleep in the white bed that Anne had +slept in. + +He told himself that he had to be near Colin; there was only the passage +between and their doors could stand open; that was why he wanted to +sleep there. But he knew that was not why. He wanted to sleep there +because there was no other room where he could feel Anne so near him, +where he could see her so clearly. When the dawn came she would be with +him, sitting in her chair by the window. The window looked to the west, +to Upper Speed and the Manor Farm house. The house was down there behind +the trees, and somewhere there, jutting out above the porch, was the +window of Anne's room. + +He looked at his watch. One o'clock. At two he would go and see Anne. + + +ii + +When Jerrold called at the Manor Farm house Anne was out. Old Ballinger +came slouching up from the farmyard to tell him that Miss Anne had gone +up to the Far Acres field to try the new tractor. + +The Far Acres field lay at the western end of the estate. Jerrold +followed her there. Five furrows, five bright brown bands on the sallow +stubble, marked out the Far Acres into five plots. In the turning space +at the top corner he saw Anne on her black horse and Colin standing +beside her. + +With a great clanking and clanging the new American, tractor struggled +towards them up the hill, dragging its plough. It stopped and turned at +the "headland" as Jerrold came up. + +A clear, light wind blew over the hill and he felt a sudden happiness +and excitement. He was beginning to take an interest in his land. He +shouted: + +"I say, Anne, you look like Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo." + +"Oh, not Waterloo, I hope. I'm going to win _my_ battle." + +"Well, Marengo--Austerlitz--whatever battles he did win. Does Curtis +understand that infernal thing?" + +Young Curtis, sulky and stolid on his driver's seat, stared at his new +master. + +"Yes. He's been taught motor mechanics. He's quite good at it ... If +only he'd do what you tell him. Curtis, I said you were not to use those +disc coulters for this field. I've had three smashed in two weeks. +They're no earthly good for stony soil." + +"Tis n' so bad 'ere as it is at the east end, miss." + +"Well, we'll see. You can let her go now." + +With a fearful grinding and clanking the tractor started. The revolving +disc coulter cut the earth; the three great shares gripped it and turned +it on one side. But the earth, instead of slanting off clear from the +furrows, fell back again. Anne dismounted and ran after the tractor and +stopped it. + +"He hasn't got his plough set right," she said. "It's too deep in." + +She stooped, and did something mysterious and efficient with a lever; +the wheels dipped, raising the shares to their right level, and the +tractor set off again. This time the earth parted clean from the furrows +with the noise of surge, and three slanting, glistening waves ran the +length of the field in the wake of the triple plough. + +"Oh, Jerrold, look at those three lovely furrows. Look at the pace it +goes. This field will be ploughed up in a day or two. Colin, aren't you +pleased?" + +The tractor was coming towards them, making a most horrible noise. + +"No," he said, "I don't like the row it makes. Can't I go, now I've seen +what the beastly thing can do?" + +"Yes. You'd better go if you can't stand it." + +Colin went with quick, desperate strides down the field away from the +terrifying sound of the tractor. + +They looked after him sorrowfully. + +"He's not right yet. I don't think he'll ever be able to stand noises." + +"You must give him time, Anne." + +"Time? He's had three years. It's heart-breaking. I must just keep him +out of the way of the tractors, that's all." + +She mounted her horse and went riding up and down the field, abreast of +the plough. + +Jerrold waited for her at the gate of the field. + + +iii + +It was Sunday evening between five and six. + +Anne was in the house, in the great Jacobean room on the first floor. +Barker had judged it too large and too dilapidated to live in, and it +had been left empty in his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold +had furnished it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor stretched along +the walls, for Jerrold had given Eliot half of their father's books. +This room would be too dilapidated to live in, and it had been left +empty in his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold had furnished +it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor stretched along the walls, for +Jerrold had given Eliot half of their father's books. This room would be +Eliot's library when he came down. It was now Anne's sitting-room. + +The leaded windows were thrown open to the grey evening and a drizzling +rain; but a fire blazed on the great hearth under the arch of the carved +stone chimney-piece. Anne's couch was drawn up before it. She lay +stretched out on it, tired with her week's work. + +She was all alone in the house. The gardener and his wife went out +together every Sunday to spend the evening with their families at +Medlicote or Wyck. She was not sorry when they were gone; the stillness +of the house rested her. But she missed Colin. Last Sunday he had been +there, sitting beside her in his chair by the hearth, reading. Today he +was with Jerrold at the Manor. The soft drizzle turned to a quick patter +of rain; a curtain of rain fell, covering the grey fields between the +farm and the Manor, cutting her off. + +She was listening to the rain when she heard the click of the gate and +feet on the garden path. They stopped on the flagstones under her +window. Jerrold's voice called up to her. + +"Anne--Anne, are you there? Can I come up?" + +"Rather." + +He came rushing up the stairs. He was in the room now. + +"How nice of you to come on this beastly evening." + +"That's why I came. I thought it would be so rotten for you all alone +down here." + +"What have you done with Colin?" + +"Left him up there. He was making no end of a row on the piano." + +"Oh Jerrold, if he's playing again he'll be all right." + +"He didn't sound as if there was much the matter with him." + +"You never can tell. He can't stand those tractors." + +"We must keep him away from the beastly things. I suppose we've got to +have 'em?" + +"I'm afraid so. They save no end of labour, and labour's short and +dear." + +"Is that why you've been working yourself to death?" + +"I haven't. Why, do I look dead?" + +"No. Eliot told me. He saw you at it." + +"I only take a hand at hay time and harvest. All the rest of the year +it's just riding about and seeing that other people work. And Colin does +half of that now." + +"All the same, I think it's about time you stopped." + +"But if I stop the whole thing'll stop. The men must have somebody over +them." + +"There's me." + +"You don't know anything about farming, Jerry dear. You don't know a teg +from a wether." + +"I suppose I can learn if Colin's learnt. Or I can get another Barker." + +"Not so easy. Don't you like my looking after your land, then? Aren't +you pleased with me? I haven't done so badly, you know. Seven hundred +acres." + +"You've been simply splendid. I shall never forget what you've done. And +I shall never forgive myself for letting you do it. I'd no idea what it +meant." + +"It's only meant that Colin's better and I've been happier than I ever +thought I could have been." + +"Happier? Weren't you happy then?" + +She didn't answer. They were on dangerous ground. If they began talking +about happiness-- + +"If I gave it up to-morrow," she said, "I should only go and work on +another farm." + +"Would you?" + +"Jerrold--do you want me to go?" + +"Want you?" + +"Yes. You did once. At least, you wanted to get away from _me_." + +"I didn't know what I was doing. If I had known I shouldn't have done +it. I can't talk about that, Anne. It doesn't bear thinking about." + +"No. But, Jerrold--tell me the truth. Do you want me to go because of +Colin?" + +"Colin?" + +"Yes. Because of what your mother told you?" + +"How do you know what she told me?" + +"She told Eliot." + +"And he told _you_? Good God! what was he thinking of?" + +"He thought it better for me to know it. It _was_ better." + +"How could it be?" + +"I can't tell you...Jerrold, it isn't true." + +"I know it isn't." + +"But you thought it was." + +"When did I think?" + +"Then; when you came to see me." + +"Did I?" + +"Yes. And you're not going to lie about it now." + +"Well, if I did I've paid for it." + +(What did he mean? Paid for it? It was she who had paid.) + +"When did you know it wasn't true?" she said. + +"Three months after, when Eliot wrote and told me. It was too late +then.... If only you'd told me at the time. Why didn't you?" + +"But I didn't know you thought it. How could I know?" + +"No. How could you? Who would have believed that things could have +happened so damnably as that?" + +"But it's all right now. Why did you say it was too late?" + +"Because it _was_ too late. I was married." + +"What _do_ you mean?" + +"I mean that I lied when I told you it made no difference. It made that +difference. If I hadn't thought that you and Colin were...if I hadn't +thought that, I wouldn't have married Maisie. I'd have married you." + +"Don't say that, Jerrold." + +"Well--you asked for the truth, and there it is." + +She got up and walked away from him to the window. He followed her +there. She spread out her hands to the cold rain. + +"It's raining still," she said. + +He caught back her hands. + +"Would you have married me?" + +"Don't, Jerrold, don't. It's cruel of you." + +He was holding her by her hands. + +"_Would_ you? Tell me. Tell me." + +"Let go my hands, then." + +He let them go. They turned back to the fireplace. Anne shivered. She +held herself to the warmth. + +"You haven't told me," he said. + +"No, I haven't told you," she repeated, stupidly. + +"That's because you _would_. That's because you love me. You do love +me." + +"I've always loved you." + +She spoke as if from some far-off place; as if the eternity of her love +removed her from him, put her beyond his reach. + +"But--what's the good of talking about it?" she said. + +"All the good in the world. We owed each other the truth. We know it +now; we know where we are. We needn't humbug ourselves and each other +any more. You see what comes of keeping back the truth. Look how we've +had to pay for it. You and me. Would you rather go on thinking I didn't +care for you?" + +"No, Jerrold, no. I'm only wondering what we're to do next." + +"Next?" + +"Yes. _That's_ why you want me to go away." + +"It isn't. It's why I want you to stay. I want you to leave off working +and do all the jolly things we used to do." + +"You mustn't make me leave off working. It's my only chance." + +They turned restlessly from the fireplace to the couch. They sat one at +each end of it, still for a long time, without speaking. The fire died +down. The evening darkened in the rain. The twilight came between them, +poignant and disquieting, dimming their faces, making them strange and +wonderful to each other. Their bodies loomed up through it, wonderful +and strange. The high white stone chimney-piece glimmered like an arch +into some inner place. + +Outside, from the church below the farm house, the bell tinkled for +service. + +It ceased. + +Suddenly they rose and he came towards her to take her in his arms. She +beat down his hands and hung on them, keeping him off. + +"Don't, Jerry, please, please don't hold me." + +"Oh Anne, let me. You let me once. Don't you remember?" + +"We can't now. We mustn't." + +And yet she knew that it would happen in some time, in some way. But not +now. Not like this. + +"We mustn't." + +"Don't you want me to take you in my arms?" + +"No. Not that." + +"What, then?" He pressed tighter. + +"I want you not to hurt Maisie." + +"It's too late to think of Maisie now." + +"I'm not thinking of her. I'm thinking of you. You'll hurt yourself +frightfully if you hurt her." She wrenched his hands apart and went from +him to the door. + +"What are you going to do?" he said. + +"I'm going to fetch the lamp." + +She left him standing there. + +A few minutes later she came back carrying the lighted lamp. He took it +from her and set it on the table. + +"And now?" + +"Now you're going back to Colin. And we're both going to be good...You +do want to be good--don't you?" + +"Yes. But I don't see how we're going to manage it." + +"We could manage it if we didn't see each other. If I went away." + +"Anne, you wouldn't. You can't mean that. I couldn't stand not seeing +you. You couldn't stand it, either." + +"I have stood it. I can stand it again." + +"You can't. Not now. It's all different. I swear I'll be decent. I won't +say another word if only you won't go." + +"I don't see how I can very well. There's the land... No. Colin must +look after that. I'll go when the ploughing's done. And some day you'll +be glad I went." + +"Go. Go. You'll find out then." + +Their tenderness was over. Something hard and defiant had come in to +them with the light. He was at the door now. + +"And you'll come back," he said. "You'll see you'll come back." + + + +XIII + + +ANNE AND JERROLD + +i + +When he was gone she turned on herself in fury. What had she done it +for? Why had she let him go? She didn't want to be good. She wanted +nothing in the world but Jerrold. + +She hadn't done it for Maisie. Maisie was nothing to her. A woman she +had never seen and didn't want to see. She knew nothing of her but her +name, and that was sweet and vague like a perfume coming from some place +unknown. She had no sweet image of Maisie in her mind. Maisie might +never have existed for all that Anne thought about her. + +What did she do it for, then? Why didn't she take him when he gave +himself? When she knew that in the end it must come to that? + +As far as she could see through her darkness it was because she knew +that Jerrold had not meant to give himself when he came to her. She had +driven him to it. She had made him betray his secret when she asked for +the truth. At that moment she was the stronger; she had him at a +disadvantage. She couldn't take him like that, through the sudden +movement of his weakness. Before she surrendered she must know first +whether Jerrold's passion for her was his weakness or his strength. +Jerrold didn't know yet. She must give him time to find out. + +But before all she had been afraid that if Jerrold hurt Maisie he would +hurt himself. She must know which was going to hurt him more, her +refusal or her surrender. If he wanted "to be good" she must go away and +give him his chance. + +And before the ploughing was all over she had gone. + +She went down into Essex, to see how her own farm was getting on. The +tenant who had the house wanted to buy it when his three years' lease +was up. Anne had decided that she would let him. The lease would be up +in June. Her agent advised her to sell what was left of the farm land +for building, which was what Anne had meant to do. She wanted to get rid +of the whole place and be free. All this had to be looked into. + +She had not been gone from Jerrold a week before the torture of +separation became unbearable. She had said that she could bear it +because she had borne it before, but, as Jerrold had pointed out to her, +it wasn't the same thing now. There was all the difference in the world +between Jerrold's going away from her because he didn't want her, and +her going away from Jerrold because he did. It was the difference +between putting up with a dull continuous pain you had to bear, and +enduring a sharp agony you could end at any minute. Before, she had only +given up what she couldn't get; now, she was giving up what she could +have to-morrow by simply going back to Wyck. + +She loathed the flat Essex country and the streets of little white rough +cast and red-tiled houses on the Ilford side where the clear fields had +once lain beyond the tall elm rows. She was haunted by the steep, +many-coloured pattern of the hills round Wyck, and the grey gables of +the Manor. Love-sickness and home-sickness tore at her together till her +heart felt as if it were stretched out to breaking point. + +She had only to go back and she would end this pain. Then on the sixth +day Jerrold's wire came: "Colin ill again. Please come back. Jerrold." + + +ii + +It was not her fault and it was not Jerrold's. The thing had been taken +out of their hands. She had not meant to go and Jerrold had not meant to +send for her. Colin must have made him. They had lost each other through +Colin and now it was Colin who had brought them together. + +Colin's terror had come again. Again he had the haunting fear of the +tremendous rushing noise, the crash always about to come that never +came. He slept in brief fits and woke screaming. + +Eliot had been down to see him and had gone. And again, as before, +nobody could do anything with him but Anne. + +"I couldn't," Jerrold said, "and Eliot couldn't. Eliot made me send for +you." + +They had left Colin upstairs and were together in the drawing-room. He +stood in the full wash of the sunlight that flooded in through the west +window. It showed his face drawn and haggard, and discoloured, as though +he had come through a long illness. His mouth was hard with pain. He +stared away from her with heavy, wounded eyes. She looked at him and was +frightened. + +"Jerrold, have you been ill?" + +"No. What makes you think so?" + +"You look ill. You look as if you hadn't slept for ages." + +"I haven't. I've been frightfully worried about Colin." + +"Have you any idea what set him off again?" + +"I believe it was those infernal tractors. He would go out with them +after you'd left. He said he'd have to, as long as you weren't there. +And he couldn't stand the row. Eliot said it would be that. And the +responsibility, the feeling that everything depended on him." + +"I see. I oughtn't to have left him." + +"It looks like it." + +"What else did Eliot say?" + +"Oh, he thinks perhaps he might be better at the Farm than up here. He +thinks it's bad for him sleeping in that room where he was frightened +when he was a kid. He says it all hooks on to that. What's more, he says +he may go on having these relapses for years. Any noise or strain or +excitement'll bring them on. Do you mind his being at the Farm again?" + +"Mind? Of course I don't. If I'm to look after him _and_ the land it'll +be very much easier there than here." + +For every night at Colin's bedtime Anne came up to the Manor. She slept +in the room that was to be Maisie's. When Colin screamed she went to him +and sat with him till he slept again. In the morning she went back to +the Farm. + +She had been doing this for a week now, and Colin was better. + +But he didn't want to go back. If, he said, Jerrold didn't mind having +him. + +Jerrold wanted to know why he didn't want to go back and Colin told him. + +"Hasn't it occurred to you that I've hurt Anne enough without beginning +all over again? All these damned people here think I'm her lover." + +"You can't help that. You're not the only one that's hurt her. We must +try and make it up to her, that's all." + +"How are we going to do it?" + +"My God! I don't know. I shall begin by cutting the swine who've cut +her." + +"That's no good. She doesn't care if they do cut her. She only cares +about us. She's done everything for us, and among us all we've done +nothing for her. Absolutely nothing. We can't give her anything. We +haven't got anything to give her that she wants." + +Jerrold was silent. + +Presently he said, "She wants Sutton's farm. Sutton's dying. I shall +give it to her when he's dead." + +"You think that'll make up?" + +"No, Colin, I don't. Supposing we don't talk about it any more." + +"All right. I say, when's Maisie coming home?" + +"God only knows. I don't." + +He wondered how much Colin knew. + + +iii + +February had gone. They were in the middle of March, and still Maisie +had not come back. + +She wrote sweet little letters to him saying she was sorry to be so long +away, but her mother wanted her to stay on another week. When Jerrold +wrote asking her to come back (he did this so that he might feel that he +had really played the game) she answered that they wouldn't let her go +till she was rested, and she wasn't quite rested yet. Jerrold mustn't +imagine she was the least bit ill, only rather tired after the winter's +racketing. It would be heavenly to see him again. + +Then when she was rested her mother got ill and she had to go with her +to Torquay. And at Torquay Maisie stayed on and on. + +And Jerrold didn't imagine she had been the least bit ill, or even very +tired, or that Lady Durham was ill. He preferred to think that Maisie +stayed away because she wanted to, because she cared about her people +more than she cared about him. The longer she stayed the more +obstinately he thought it. Here was he, trying to play the game, trying +to be decent and keep straight, and there was Maisie leaving him alone +with Anne and making it impossible for him. + +Anne had been back at the Farm a week and he had not been to see her. +But Maisie's last letter made him wonder whether, really, he need try +any more. He was ill and miserable. Why should he make himself ill and +miserable for a woman who didn't care whether he was ill and miserable +or not? Why shouldn't he go and see Anne? Maisie had left him to her. + +And on Sunday morning, suddenly, he went. + +There had been a sharp frost overnight. Every branch and twig, every +blade of grass, every crinkle in the road was edged with a white fur of +rime. It crackled under his feet. He drank down the cold, clean air like +water. His whole body felt cold and clean. He was aware of its strength +in the hard tension of his muscles as he walked. His own movement +exhilarated and excited him. He was going to see Anne. + +Anne was not in the house. He went through the yards looking for her. In +the stockyard he met her coming up from the sheepfold, carrying a young +lamb in her arms. She smiled at him as she came. + +She wore her farm dress, knee breeches and a thing like an old trench +coat, and looked superb. She went bareheaded. Her black hair was brushed +up from her forehead and down over her ears, the length of it rolled in +on itself in a curving mass at the back. Over it the frost had raised a +crisp web of hair that covered its solid smoothness like a net. Anne's +head was the head of a hunting Diana; it might have fitted into the +sickle moon. + +The lamb's queer knotted body was like a grey ligament between its hind +and fore quarters. It rested on Anne's arms, the long black legs +dangling. The black-faced, hammer-shaped head hung in the hollow of her +elbow. + +"This is Colin's job," she said. + +"What are you doing with it?" + +"Taking it indoors to nurse it. It's been frozen stiff, poor darling. Do +you mind looking in the barn and seeing if you can find some old sacks +there?" + +He looked, found the sacks and carried them, following her into the +kitchen. Anne fetched a piece of old blanket and wrapped the lamb up. +They made a bed of the sacks before the fire and laid it on it. She +warmed some milk, dipped her fingers in it and put them into the lamb's +mouth to see if it would suck. + +"I didn't know they'd do that," he said. + +"Oh, they'll suck anything. When you've had them a little time they'll +climb into your lap like puppies and suck the buttons on your coat. Its +mother's dead and we shall have to bring it up by hand." + +"I doubt if you will." + +"Oh yes, I shall save it. It can suck all right. You might tell Colin +about it. He looks after the sick lambs." + +She got up and stood looking down at the lamb tucked in its blanket, +while Jerrold looked at her. When she looked down Anne's face was +divinely tender, as if all the love in the world was in her heart. He +loved to agony that tender, downward-looking face. + +She raised her eyes and saw his fixed on her, heavy and wounded, and his +face strained and drawn with pain. And again she was frightened. + +"Jerrold, you _are_ ill. What is it?" + +"Don't. They'll hear us." He glanced at the open door. + +"They can't. He's in church and she's upstairs in the bedrooms." + +"Can't you leave that animal and come somewhere where we can talk?" + +"Come, then." + +He followed her out through the hall and into the small, oak-panelled +dining-room. They sat down there in chairs that faced each other on +either side of the fireplace. + +"What is it?" she repeated. "Have you got a pain?" + +"A beastly pain." + +"How long have you had it?" + +"Ever since you went away. I lied when I told you it was Colin. It +isn't." + +"What is it, then? Tell me. Tell me." + +"It's not seeing you. It's this insane life we're leading. It's making +me ill. You don't know what it's been like. And I can't keep my promise. +I--I love you too damnably." + +"Oh, Jerrold--does it hurt as much as that?" + +"You know how it hurts." + +"I don't want you to be hurt----But--darling--if you care for me like +that how could you marry Maisie?" + +"Because I cared for you. Because I was so mad about you that nothing +mattered. I thought I might as well marry her as not." + +"But if you didn't care for her?" + +"I did. I do, in a way. Maisie's awfully sweet. Besides, it wasn't that. +You see, I was going out to France, and I thought I was bound to be +killed. Nobody could go on having the luck I'd had. I wanted to be +killed." + +"So you were sure it would happen. You always thought things would +happen if you wanted them." + +"I was absolutely sure. I was never more sold in my life than when it +didn't. Even then I thought it would be all right till Eliot told me. +Then I knew that if I hadn't been in such a damned hurry I might have +married you." + +"Poor Maisie." + +"Poor Maisie. But she doesn't know. And if she did I don't think she'd +mind much. I married her because I thought she cared about me--and +because I thought I'd be killed before I could come back to her--But she +doesn't care a damn. So you needn't bother about Maisie. And you won't +go away again?" + +"I won't go away as long as you want me." + +"That's all right then." + +He looked at his watch. + +"I must be off. They'll be coming out of church. I don't want them to +see me here now because I'm coming back in the evening. We shall have to +be awfully careful how we see each other. I say--I _may_ come this +evening, mayn't I?" + +"Yes." + +"Same time as last Sunday? You'll be alone then?" + +"Yes." Her voice sounded as if it didn't belong to her. As if some other +person stronger than she, were answering for her. + +When he had gone she called after him. + +"Don't forget to tell Colin about the lamb." + +She went upstairs and slipped off her farm clothes and put on the +brown-silk frock she had worn when he last came to her. She looked in +the glass and was glad that she was beautiful. + + +iv + +She began to count the minutes and the hours till Jerrold came. Dinner +time passed. + +All afternoon she was restless and excited. She wandered from room to +room, as if she were looking for something she couldn't find. She went +to and fro between the dining-room and kitchen to see how the lamb was +getting on. Wrapped in its blanket, it lay asleep after its meal of +milk. Its body was warm to the touch and under its soft ribs she could +feel the beating of its heart. It would live. + +Two o'clock. She took up the novel she had been reading before Jerrold +had come and tried to get back into it. Ten minutes passed. She had read +through three pages without taking in a word. Her mind went back and +back to Jerrold, to the morning of today, to the evening of last Sunday, +going over and over the things they had said to each other; seeing +Jerrold again, with every movement, every gesture, the sudden shining +and darkening of his eyes, and his tense drawn look of pain. How she +must have hurt him! + +It was his looking at her like that, as if she had hurt him--Anne never +could hold out against other people's unhappiness. + +Half past two. + +She kicked off her shoes, put on her thick boots and her coat, and +walked two miles up the road towards Medlicote, for no reason but that +she couldn't sit still. It was not four o'clock when she got back. She +went into the kitchen and looked at the lamb again. + +She thought: Supposing Colin comes down to see it when Jerrold's here? +But he wouldn't come. Jerrold would take care of that. Or supposing the +Kimbers stayed in? They wouldn't. They never did. And if they did, why +not? Why shouldn't Jerrold come to see her? + +Four o'clock struck. She had the fire lit in the big upstairs +sitting-room. Tea was brought to her there. Mrs. Kimber glanced at her +where she lay back on the couch, her hands hanging loose in her lap. + +"You're tired after all your week's work, miss?" + +"A little." + +"And I dare say you miss Mr. Colin?" + +"Yes, I miss him very much." + +"No doubt he'll be coming down to see the lamb." + +"Oh yes; he'll want to see the lamb." + +"And you're sure you don't mind me and Kimber going out, miss?" + +"Not a bit. I like you to go." + +"It's a wonder to me," said Mrs. Kimber, "as you're not afraid to be +left alone in this 'ere house. But Kimber says, Miss Anne, she isn't +afraid of nothing. And I don't suppose you are, what with going out to +the war and all." + +"There's not much to be afraid of here." + +"That there isn't. Not unless 'tis people's nasty tongues." + +"_They_ don't frighten me, Mrs. Kimber." + +"No, miss. I should think not indeed. And no reason why they should." + +And Mrs. Kimber left her. + +A sound of pails clanking came from the yard. That was Minchin, the cow +man, going from the dairy to the cow sheds. Milking time, then. It must +be half past four. + +Five o'clock, the slamming of the front door, the click of the gate, and +the Kimbers' voices in the road below as they went towards Wyck. + +Anne was alone. + +Only half an hour and Jerrold would be with her. The beating of her +heart was her measure of time now. What would have happened before he +had gone again? She didn't know. She didn't try to know. It was enough +that she knew herself, and Jerrold; that she hadn't humbugged herself or +him, pretending that their passion was anything but what it was. She saw +it clearly in its reality. They couldn't go on as they were. In the end +something must happen. They were being drawn to each other, +irresistibly, inevitably, nearer and nearer, and Anne knew that a moment +would come when she would give herself to him. But that it would come +today or to-morrow or at any fore-appointed time she did not know. It +would come, if it came at all, when she was not looking for it. She had +no purpose in her, no will to make it come. + +She couldn't think. It was no use trying to. The thumping of her heart +beat down her thoughts. Her brain swam in a warm darkness. Every now and +then names drifted to her out of the darkness: Colin--Eliot--Maisie. + +Maisie. Only a name, a sound that haunted her always, like a vague, +sweet perfume from an unknown place. But it forced her to think. + +What about Maisie? It would have been awful to take Jerrold away from +Maisie, if she cared for him. But she wasn't taking him away. She +couldn't take away what Maisie had never had. And Maisie didn't care for +Jerrold; and if she didn't care she had no right to keep him. She had +nothing but her legal claim. + +Besides, what was done was done. The sin against Maisie had been +committed already in Jerrold's heart when it turned from her. Whatever +happened, or didn't happen, afterwards, nothing could undo that. And +Maisie wouldn't suffer. She wouldn't know. Her thoughts went out again +on the dark flood. She couldn't think any more. + +Half past five. + +She started up at the click of the gate. That was Jerrold. + + +v + +He came to her quickly and took her in his arms. And her brain was +swamped again with the warm, heavy darkness. She could feel nothing but +her pulses beating, beating against his, and the quick droning of the +blood in her ears. Her head was bent to his breast; he stooped and +kissed the nape of her neck, lightly, brushing the smooth, sweet, +roseleaf skin. They stood together, pressed close, closer, to each +other. He clasped his hands at the back of her head and drew it to him. +She leaned it hard against the clasping hands, tilting it so that she +saw his face, before it stooped again, closing down on hers. + +Their arms slackened; they came apart, drawing their hands slowly, +reluctantly, down from each other's shoulders. + +They sat down, she on her couch and he in Colin's chair. + +"Is Colin coming?" she said. + +"No, he isn't." + +"Well--the lamb's better." + +"I never told him about the lamb. I didn't want him to come." + +"Is he all right?" + +"I left him playing." + +The darkness had gone from her brain and the tumult from her senses. She +felt nothing but her heart straining towards him in an immense +tenderness that was half pity. + +"Are you thinking about Colin?" he said. + +"No. I'm not thinking about anything but you... _Now_ you know why I was +happy looking after Colin. Why I was happy working on the land. Because +he was your brother. Because it was your land. Because there wasn't +anything else I could do for you." + +"And I've done nothing for you. I've only hurt you horribly. I've +brought you nothing but trouble and danger." + +"I don't care." + +"No, but think. Anne darling, this is going to be a very risky business. +Are you sure you can go through with it? Are you sure you're not +afraid?" + +"I've never been much afraid of anything." + +"I ought to be afraid for you." + +"Don't. Don't be afraid. The more dangerous it is the better I shall +like it." + +"I don't know. It was bad enough in all conscience for you and Colin. +It'll be worse for us if we're found out. Of course we shan't be found +out, but there's always a risk. And it would be worse for you than for +me, Anne." + +"I don't care. I want it to be. Besides, it won't. It'll be far worse +for you because of Maisie. That's the only thing that makes it wrong." + +"Don't think about that, darling." + +"I don't. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care how wrong it is if it +makes you happy. And if God's going to punish either of us I hope it'll +be me." + +"God? The God doesn't exist who could punish _you_." + +"I don't care if he does punish me so long as you're let off." + +She came over to him and slid to the floor and crouched beside him and +laid her head against his knees. She clasped his knees tight with her +arms. + +"I don't want you to be hurt," she said. "I can't bear you to be hurt. +But what can I do?" + +"Stay like that. Close. Don't go." + +She stayed, pressing her face down tighter, rubbing her cheek against +his rough tweed. He put his arm round her shoulder, holding her there; +his fingers stroked, stroked the back of her neck, pushed up through the +fine roots of her hair, giving her the caress she loved. Her nerves +thrilled with a sudden secret bliss. + +"Jerrold, it's heaven when you touch me." + +"I know. It's hell for me when I don't." + +"I didn't know. I didn't know. If only I'd known." + +"We know now." + +There was a long silence. Now and again she felt him stirring uneasily. +Once he sighed and her heart tightened. At last he bent over her and +lifted her up and set her on his knee. She lay back gathered in his +arms, with her head on his breast, satisfied, like a child. + +"Jerrold, do you remember how you used to hold me to keep me from +falling in the goldfish pond?" + +"Yes." + +"I've loved you ever since then." + +"Do you remember how I kissed you when I went to school?" + +"Yes." + +"And the night that Nicky died?" + +"Yes." + +"I've been sleeping in that room, because it was yours." + +"Have you? Did you love me _then_, that night?" + +"Yes. But I didn't know I did. And then Father's death came and stopped +it." + +"I know. I know." + +"Anne, what a brute I was to you. Can you ever forgive me?" + +"I forgave you long ago." + +"Talk of punishments--" + +"Don't talk of punishments." + +Presently they left off talking, and he kissed her. He kissed her again +and again, with light kisses brushing her face for its sweetness, with +quick, hard kisses that hurt, with slow, deep kisses that stayed where +they fell; kisses remembered and unremembered, longed for, imagined and +unimaginable. + +The church bell began ringing for service, short notes first, tinkling +and tinkling; then a hurrying and scattering of sounds, sounds falling +together, running into each other, covering each other; one long +throbbing and clanging sound; and then hard, slow strokes, measuring out +the seconds like a clock. They waited till the bell ceased. + +The dusk gathered. It spread from the corners to the middle of the room. +The tall white arch of the chimney-piece jutted out through the dusk. + +Anne stirred slightly. + +"I say, how dark it's getting." + +"Yes. I like it. Don't get the lamp." + +They sat clinging together, waiting for the dark. + +The window panes were a black glimmer in the grey. He got up and drew +the curtains, shutting out the black glimmer of the panes. He came to +her and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch and laid her +on it. + +She shut her eyes and waited. + + + +XIV + + +MAISIE + +i + +He didn't know what he was going to do about Maisie. + +On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home. He had motored her up +from the station, and now the door of the drawing-room had closed on +them and they were alone together in there. + +"Oh, Jerrold--it _is_ nice--to see you--again." + +She panted a little, a way she had when she was excited. + +"Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on earth he was going to do +next. + +He had been all right on the station platform where their greetings had +been public and perfunctory, but now he would have to do something +intimate and, above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick. + +They looked at each other and he took again the impression she had +always given him of delicate beauty and sweetness. She was tall and her +neck bent slightly forward as she walked; this gave her the air of +bowing prettily, of offering you something with a charming grace. Her +shoulders and her hips had the same long, slenderly sloping curves. Her +hair was mole brown on the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way +that uncovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the thin bluish +whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue eyes looked larger than they were +because of their dark brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about +their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low and straight in +the bridge, then curved under, delicately acquiline, its nostrils were +close and clean cut. Her small, close upper lip had a flying droop; and +her chin curved slightly, ever so slightly, away to her throat. When she +talked Maisie's mouth and the tip of her nose kept up the same +sensitive, quivering play. But Maisie's eyes were still; they had no +sparkling speech; they listened, deeply attentive to the person who was +there. They took up the smile her mouth began and was too small to +finish. + +And now, as they looked at him, he felt that he ought to take her in his +arms, suddenly, at once. In another instant it would be too late, the +action would have lost the grace of spontaneous impulse. He wondered how +you simulated a spontaneous impulse. + +But Maisie made it all right for him. As he stood waiting for his +impulse she came to him and laid her hands on his shoulders and kissed +him, gently, on each cheek. Her hands slid down; they pressed hard +against his arms above the elbow, as if to keep back his too passionate +embrace. It was easy enough to return her kiss, to pass his arms under +hers and press her slight body, gently, with his cramped hands. Did she +know that his heart was not in it? + +No. She knew nothing. + +"What have you been doing with yourself?" she said. "You do look fit." + +"Do I? Oh, nothing much." + +He turned away from her sweet eyes that hurt him. + +At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and put cushions at her +back, and pour out her tea and wait on her. He tried by a number of +careful, deliberate attentions to make up for his utter lack of +spontaneity. And she sat there, drinking her tea, contented; pleased to +be back in her happy home; serenely unaware that anything was missing. + +He took her over the house and showed her her room, the long room with +the two south windows, one on each side of the square, cross-lighted bay +above the porch. It was full of the clear April light. + +Maisie looked round, taking it all in, the privet-white panels, the +lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of old rose damask. An armchair +and a round table with a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre +of the bay. + +"Is this mine, this heavenly room?" + +"I thought so." + +He was glad that he had something beautiful to give her, to make up. + +She glanced at the inner door leading to his father's room. "Is that +yours in there?" + +"Mine? No. That door's locked. It... I'm on the other side next to +Colin." + +"Show me." + +He took her into the gallery and showed her. + +"It's that door over there at the end." + +"What a long way off," she said. + +"Why? You're not afraid, are you?" + +"Dear me, no. Could anybody be afraid here?" + +"Poor Colin's pretty jumpy still. That's why I have to be near him." + +"I see." + +"You won't mind having him with us, will you?" + +"I shall love having him. Always. I hope he won't mind _me_." + +"He'll adore you, of course." + +"Now show me the garden." + +They went out on to the green terraces where the peacocks spread their +great tails of yew. Maisie loved the peacocks and the clipped yew walls +and the goldfish pond and the flower garden. + +He walked quickly, afraid to linger, afraid of having to talk to her. He +felt as if the least thing she said would be charged with some +unendurable emotion and that at any minute he might be called on to +respond. To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie; but, +everything having changed for him, he felt that at any minute Maisie +might begin to be unlike herself. + +She was out of breath. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't go so fast, +Jerry. I want to look and look." + +They went up on to the west terrace and stood there, looking. +Brown-crimson velvet wall-flowers grew in a thick hedge under the +terrace wall; their hot sweet smell came up to them. + +"It's too beautiful for words," she said. + +"I'm glad you like it. It is rather a jolly old place." + +"It's the most adorable place I've ever been in. It looks so good and +happy. As if everybody who ever lived in it had been good and happy." + +"I don't know about that. It was a hospital for four years. And it +hasn't quite recovered yet. It's all a bit worn and shabby, I'm afraid." + +"I don't care. I love its shabbiness. I don't want to forget what it's +been.... To think that I've missed seven weeks of it." + +"You haven't missed much. We've had beastly weather all March." + +"I've missed _you_. Seven weeks of you." + +"I think you'll get over that," he said, perversely. + +"I shan't. It's left a horrid empty space. But I couldn't help it. I +really couldn't, Jerry." + +"All right, Maisie, I'm sure you couldn't." + +"Torquay was simply horrible. And this is heaven. Oh, Jerry dear, I'm +going to be so awfully happy." + +He looked at her with a sudden tenderness of pity. She was visibly +happy. He remembered that her charm for him had been her habit of +enjoyment. And as he looked at her he saw nothing but sadness in her +happiness and in her sweetness and her beauty. But the sadness was not +in her, it was in his own soul. Women like Maisie were made for men to +be faithful to them. And he had not been faithful to her. She was made +for love and he had not loved her. She was nothing to him. Looking at +her he was filled with pity for the beauty and sweetness that were +nothing to him. And in that pity and that sadness he felt for the first +time the uneasy stirring of his soul. + +If only he could have broken the physical tie that had bound him to her +until now; if only they could give it all up and fall back on some +innocent, immaterial relationship that meant no unfaithfulness to Anne. + +When he thought of Anne he didn't know for the life of him how he was +going through with it. + + +ii + +Maisie had been talking to him for some seconds before he understood. At +last he saw that, for reasons which she was unable to make clear to him, +she was letting him off. He wouldn't have to go through with it. + +As Jerrold's mind never foresaw anything he didn't want to see, so in +this matter of Maisie he had had no plan. Not that he trusted to the +inspiration of the moment; in its very nature the moment wouldn't have +an inspiration. He had simply refused to think about it at all. It was +too unpleasant. But Maisie's presence forced the problem on him with +some violence. He had given himself to Anne without a scruple, but when +it came to giving himself to Maisie his conscience developed a sudden +sense of guiltiness. For Jerrold was essentially faithful; only his +fidelity was all for Anne. His marrying Maisie had been a sin against +Anne, its sinfulness disguised because he had had no pleasure in it. The +thought of going back to Maisie after Anne revolted him; the thought of +Anne having to share him with Maisie revolted him. Nobody, he said to +himself, was ever less polygamous than he. + +At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't want her to suffer, +and if she was not to suffer she must not know, and if she was not to +know they must go on as they had begun. He was haunted by the fear of +Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt for her was poignant +and accusing, as if somehow she did know and suffer. She must at least +be aware that something was wanting. He would have to make up to her +somehow for what she had missed; he would have to give her all the other +things she wanted for that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made +it easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his conviction that +Maisie was cold, that she was incapable of caring for him as Anne cared. +His peace of mind and the freedom of his conscience depended on this +belief. But, in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted children. He knew +that. + +According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would be an injury to +Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne would forgive him; she would +understand; she wouldn't want to hurt Maisie. + +So he went through with it. + +And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he was being let off. +He wouldn't have to go on. + +He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she lay there. She had +grasped his hands by the wrists, as if to hold back their possible +caress. And her little breathless voice went on, catching itself up and +tripping. + +"You won't mind--if I don't let you--come to me?" + +"I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that about it." + +"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's just my silly nerves. +I get frightened." + +"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother you." + +"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you wouldn't understand and +it would be too hard for you. _Will_ it?" + +"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly." + +He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing, +not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread, +mercifully and incredibly let off. + +But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate; it couldn't bear +to hurt him. She held him tighter. "Jerrold--if it _is_--if you can't +stand it, you mustn't mind about me. You must forget I ever said +anything. It's nothing but nerves." + +"I shall be all right. Don't worry." + +"You _are_ a darling." + +Her grasp slackened. "Please--please go. At once. Quick." + +As he went she put her hand to her heart. She could feel the pain +coming. It filled her with an indescribable dread. Every time it came +she thought she should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited; +excitement always brought it on. She held her breath tight to keep it +back. + +Ah, it had come. Splinters of glass, sharp splinters of glass, first +pricking, then piercing, then tearing her heart. Her heart closed down +on the splinters of glass, cutting itself at every beat. + +She looked under the pillow for the little silver box that held her +pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always had it with her, ready. She +crushed a pearl in her pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils. +The pain left her. She lay still. + + +iii + +And every Sunday at six in the evening, or nine (he varied the hour to +escape suspicion), Jerrold came to Anne. + +In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's happiness was +perfect, intense and secret like the bliss of a saint in ecstasy, of +genius contemplating its finished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she +had found reality. She gave herself without shame and without remorse, +or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran. Their passion was too clean +for fear or remorse or shame. She thought love was a finer thing going +free and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound. The game of love +should be played with a high, defiant courage; you were not fit to play +it if you fretted and cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an +extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never vowed or protested +or swore not to go back on it or on each other. It was inconceivable +that they should go back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she +saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold; there never had +been a time when she had ceased to love him. This moment when they +embraced was only the meeting point between what had been and what would +be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's conscience but the sense that +Jerrold didn't belong to her, that he had no right to love her; and she +had never had that sense. They had belonged to each other, always, from +the time when they were children playing together. Maisie was the +intruder, who had no right, who had taken what didn't belong to her. And +Anne could have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse of a +great passion; but Maisie didn't care. + +So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by thinking about Maisie. She +had never seen Jerrold's wife; she didn't want to see her. So long as +she didn't see her it was as if Maisie were not there. + +And yet she _was_ there. Next to Jerrold she was more there for Anne +than the people she saw every day. Maisie's presence made itself felt in +all the risks they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, but +to a continuous happiness. She was the reason why they could only meet +at intervals for one difficult and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie, +Jerrold, instead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard of +consequences, had to think out the least revolting ways by which they +might evade them. He had to set up some sort of screen for his Sunday +visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark +on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the +cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the +mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate +provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing +Anne. + +For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a +profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into +his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it, +so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the +land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He +determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate +himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew, +and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in +Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he +believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day +this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased +by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now +was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen; +his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his +companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other +was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He +rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in +all weathers. + +At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or +touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting +quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus +aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant +even than the moment of his passion. + +At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically, +that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers. +In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and +the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian +of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had +put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave +the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep +an eye on his brother and Anne Severn. + +Anne was not concerned with what they said. She felt that Jerrold and +she were safe so long as she didn't know Maisie. It never struck her +that Maisie would want to know _her_, since nobody else did. + + +iv + +But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that reason. One day she came +to Jerrold with the visiting cards. + +"The Corbetts and Hawtreys have called. Shall I like them?" + +"I don't know. _I_ won't have anything to do with them." + +"Why not?" + +"Because of the beastly way they've behaved to Anne Severn." + +"What have they done?" + +"Done? They've been perfect swine. They've cut her for five years +because she looked after Colin. They've said the filthiest things about +her." + +"What sort of things?" + +"Why, that Colin was her lover." + +"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was a saint." + +"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her. My mother left her all +by herself here to take care of him and she wouldn't leave him. She +thought of nothing but him." + +"She must be a perfect angel." + +"She is." + +"But about these horrible people--what do you want me to do?" + +"Do what you like." + +"_I_ don't want to know them. I'm thinking what would be best for Anne." + +"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she was _your_ friend." + +"But she _is_ if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I want her to be.... I +think I'd better call on these Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show +them how we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if they aren't +decent to her. It'll be far more telling than if I began by being +rude.... Only, Jerrold, how absurd--I don't know Anne. _She_ hasn't +called yet." + +"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know her." + +"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's the very reason. Why, +she's the only person here I do want to know. I think I fell in love +with the sound of her when you first told me about her and how she took +care of Colin. We must do everything we can to make up. We must have her +here a lot and give her a jolly time." + +He looked at her. + +"Maisie, you really _are_ rather a darling." + +"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be.... Shall I go and see her or +will you bring her?" + +"I think--perhaps--I'd better bring her, first." + +He spoke slowly, considering it. + +Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea, and in the evening he +would walk back with her. + +On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor Farm. He found Anne +upstairs in the big sitting-room. + +"Oh Jerrold, darling, I didn't think you'd come so soon." + +"Maisie sent me." + +"Maisie?" + +For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened. + +"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea." + +"But--it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see +how impossible it is?" + +"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you." + +"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold--do you think she guesses?" + +"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's +absolutely guileless." + +"That makes it worse." + +"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with +these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut _them_ if +they won't be decent to you." + +"Oh, worse and worse!" + +"You're afraid of her?" + +"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid." + +"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit +dangerous." + +"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told +me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well--I don't want to see how sweet +she is." + +"Her sweetness doesn't matter." + +"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the +same again." + +"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't, +can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth +you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This +isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?" + +"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we +could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't +bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music." + +"So would I. But we can't.... Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what +people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow----" + +"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us." + +"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all +right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't +you?" + +"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her." + +"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to." + +"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the +same thing, afterwards, ever." + +"I shall be the same, Anne. And you." + +"Me? I wonder." + +He rose, smiling down at her. + +"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late." + +She went. + + +v + +In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back +and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered. +Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between +the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift +their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers. + +"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all +much better than I do." + +"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived +here." + +Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive. + +"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?" + +"Yes. He was eight when I was five." + +"Do you remember what he was like?" + +"Yes." + +Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne +stopped dead she went on herself. + +"I wish _I_'d known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered +running about and playing with him.... You were Jerrold's friend, +weren't you?" + +"And Elliot's and Colin's." + +The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of +palpable truth. + +"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what +makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long +time. You see, he's told me things about you." + +"Has he?" + +Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie +would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie. + +"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are +heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last +tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly +splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've +looked after Jerry's land for him." + +"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my +job, anyway." + +"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I +believe you've saved Jerrold." + +"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving." + +"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't +care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found +his job for him." + +"He'd have found it himself all right without me." + +"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He +was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless. +We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd +want to live in London." + +"I don't think he'd ever do that." + +"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place." + +"I know. After his father's death." + +"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've +done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before. +It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think +how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now." + +"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going." + +Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear. + +"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon.... Will +you take them? I gathered them for you." + +"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath +choked her. + +Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said +good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home. + +"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?" + +"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse." + +He laughed. "Worse?" + +"I mean she was sweeter.... Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute. +Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows--" + +"She won't know." + +When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried. + +All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl +on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her. +Nothing would ever be the same again. + + + +XV + + +ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE + +i + +It was a Sunday in the middle of April. + +Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday and had brought Eliot +back with him for the week-end. Anne had come over as she always did on +a Sunday afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the terrace when +Eliot came to them, walking with the tired limp that Anne found piteous +and adorable. Very soon Maisie murmured some gentle, unintelligible +excuse, and left them. + +There was a moment of silence in which everything they had ever said to +each other was present to them, making all other speech unnecessary, as +if they held a long intimate conversation. Eliot sat very still, not +looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the passing of those +unuttered words. Then Anne spoke and her voice broke up his mood. + +"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?" + +"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for, the germ of trench +fever." + +"You mean _you_ have." + +"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't. A lot of us were out +for it." + +"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp out the disease, +doesn't it?" + +"Probably. In time." + +"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something big before you'd +finished." + +"My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing big about it but the +research, and we were all in that. All looking for the same thing. +Happening to spot it is just heaven's own luck." + +"But aren't you glad it was you?" + +"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm glad. It's the sort of +thing I wanted to do and it's rather more important than most things one +does." + +He said no more. Years ago, when he had done nothing, he had talked +excitedly and arrogantly about his work; now that he had done what he +had set out to do he was reserved, impassive and very humble. + +"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said. + +"Not yet. You're the first." + +"Dear Eliot, you _did_ know I'd be glad." + +"It's nice of you to care." + +Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he had that supreme +satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more. +Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He +would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice +over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science, +and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life +hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so +much if she had been there, calling back his thoughts, drawing his +passion to herself. + +"What are you going to do next?" she said. + +"Next I'm going off for a month's holiday. To Sicily--Taormina. I've +been overworking and I'm a bit run down. How about Colin?" + +"He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that relapse he had when I +was away in February." + +"You mean he got over it when you came back." + +"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just what I don't like about +him, Eliot. He's getting dependent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish +he could go away somewhere for a change. A long change. Away from me, +away from the farm, away from Wyck, somewhere where he hasn't been +before. It might cure him, mightn't it?" + +"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying." + +He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going to say. She said it. + +"Eliot--do you think you could take him with you? Could you stand the +strain?" + +"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be able to stand it for +a month." + +"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a bit of trouble when +he's well. He's adorable. Only--perhaps--if you're run down you oughtn't +to." + +"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you say he ought to get +away from you, and I wanted you to come too." + +"Me?" + +"You and Maisie and Jerrold." + +"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm." + +"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that. Don't you ever get +away?" + +"Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all three be away at +once. But it's awfully nice of you to think of it." + +"I didn't. It was Maisie." + +Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and Maisie's sweetness and +kindness, breaking her down? + +"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go." + +"Why should she be?" + +"Because she wants you to." + +"Maisie?" + +"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?" + +"I was afraid she was beginning to--" + +"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like _her_?" + +"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by +loving her." + +"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do." + +"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know.... Here she is." + +Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting +grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and +breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and +limped away from them. + +"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said. + +"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you----" + +"You're coming, aren't you?" + +"I'm afraid I can't." + +"Why ever not?" + +"I can't leave the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold and Colin aren't +here." + +"Oh, bother the old land! You _must_ leave it. It can get on without you +for a month or two. Nothing much can happen in that time." + +"Oh, can't it! Things can happen in a day if you aren't there to see +that they don't." + +"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But he'll mind awfully if you +don't come. So shall I. Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back +with Eliot in time for the hay harvest, and you and I and Colin are to +go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and mother are joining us at Como +in June. We shall be there a month and come home through Switzerland." + +"It would be heavenly, but I can't do it. I can't, really, Maisie." She +was thinking: He'll be back for the hay harvest. + +"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our pleasure like that. +Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. _And_ mine. I never dreamed of your +not coming." + +"Do you mean you really want me?" + +"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at +all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do +it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the +Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come." + +"Maisie--why are you such an angel to me?" + +"I'm not. I want you to come because--oh _because_ I want you. Because I +like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say +you care more for the land than Jerrold and me." + +"I don't. I--It isn't the land altogether. It's Colin. I want him to get +away from me for a time and do without me. It's frightfully important +that he should get away." + +"We could send Colin to another part of the island with Eliot. Only that +wouldn't be very kind to Eliot." + +"No. It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere when you've come back." + +"But that's no good to _us_. Jerrold will be here for the haying, if +you're thinking of that." + +"I'm not thinking of that. I'm thinking of Colin." + +As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lying to Maisie. Lying for +the first time. That came of knowing Maisie; it came of Maisie's +sweetness. She would have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin +now; she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the hay harvest and +Maisie went on with Colin to the Italian Lakes, she would have her lover +to herself; they would be alone together all June. She would lie in his +arms, not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night after +night, from long before midnight till the dawn. + +For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne and Colin had slept out +of doors in wooden shelters set up in the Manor fields, away from the +noises of the farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from +Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's shelter had been +moved up from the field to the Manor garden. In the summer Anne would +sleep again in her shelter. The path to her field from the Manor garden +lay through three pastures and two strips of fir plantation with a green +drive between. + +Jerrold would come to her there. He would have his bed in Colin's +shelter in the garden, and when the night was quiet he would get up and +go down the Manor fields and through the fir plantation to her shelter +at the bottom. They would lie there in each other's arms, utterly safe, +hidden from passing feet and listening ears, and eyes that watched +behind window panes. + +And as she thought of his coming to her, and heard her own voice lying +to Maisie, the blood mounted to her face, flooding it to the roots of +her hair. + +"I'm thinking of Colin." + +Her voice kept on sounding loud and dreadful in her brain, while +Maisie's voice floated across it, faint, as if it came from somewhere a +long way off. + +"You never think of yourself. You're too good for anything, Anne." + +She would never be safe from Maisie and Maisie's innocence that accused, +reproached and threatened her. Maisie's sweetness went through her like +a thrusting sword, like a sharp poison; it had words that cut deeper +than threats, reproaches, accusations. Before she had seen Maisie she +had been fearless, pitiless, remorseless; now, because of Maisie, she +would never be safe from remorse and pity and fear. + +She recovered. She told herself that she hadn't lied; that she _had_ +been thinking of Colin; that she had thought of him first; that she had +refused to go to Taormina before she knew that Jerrold was coming back +for the hay harvest. She couldn't help it if she knew that now. It was +not as if she had schemed for it or counted on it. She had never for one +moment counted on anything or schemed. And still, as she thought of +Jerrold, her heart tightened on the sharp sword-thrust of remorse. + +Because of Maisie, nothing would ever be the same again. + + +ii + +In the last week of April they had gone, Jerrold and Maisie, Eliot and +Colin, to Taormina. In the last week in May Jerrold and Eliot took +Maisie up to Como on their way home. They found Sir Charles and Lady +Durham there waiting for her. They had left Colin by himself at +Taormina. + +From the first moment of landing Colin had fallen in love with Sicily +and refused to be taken away from it. He was aware that his recovery was +now in his own hands, and that he would not be free from his malady so +long as he was afraid to be alone. He had got to break himself of his +habit of dependence on other people. And here in Taormina he had come +upon the place that he could bear to be alone in. There was freedom in +his surrender to its enchantment and in the contemplation of its beauty +there was peace. And with peace and freedom he had found his +indestructible self; he had come to the end of its long injury. + +One day, sitting out on the balcony of his hotel, he wrote to Anne. + +"Don't imagine because I've got well here away from you that it wasn't +you who made me well. In the first place, I should never have gone away +if you hadn't made me go. You knew what you were about when you sent me +here. I know now what Jerrold meant when he wanted to get away by +himself after Father died. He said he wanted to grow a new memory. Well, +that's what I've done here. + +"It seemed to happen all at once. One day I'd left them all and gone out +for a walk by myself. It came over me that between me and being well, +perfectly well, there was nothing but myself, that I was really hanging +on to my illness for some sort of protection that it gave me, just as +I'd hung on to you. I'd been thinking about it all the time, filling my +mind with my illness, hanging on to the very fear of it; to save myself, +I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself. And suddenly, out +there, I let go. And the beauty of the place got me. I can't describe +the beauty, except that there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, +a clear gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming over +everything like gold water. I seemed to remember it as if I'd been here +before, a long, steady memory, not just a flash. It was like finding +something you'd lost, or when a musical phrase you've been looking for +suddenly comes back to you. It was the most utter, indescribable peace +and satisfaction. And somehow this time joined on to the times at Wyck +when we were all there and happy together; and the beastly time in +between slipped through. It just dropped out, as if it had never +happened, and I got a sense of having done with it forever. I can't tell +you what it was like. But I think it means I'm well. + +"And then, on the top of it all, I remembered you, Anne, and all your +goodness and sweetness. I got right away from my beastly self and saw +you as you are. And I knew what you'd done for me. I don't believe I +ever knew, really _knew_, before. I had to be alone with myself before I +could see it, just as I always had to be alone with my music before I +could get it right. I've never thanked you properly. I can't thank you. +There aren't any words to do it in. And I only know now what it's cost +you...." + +Did he know? Did he know that it had once cost her Jerrold? + +"... For instance, I know you gave up coming here with us because you +thought it would be better for me without you." + +Colin, too, turning it in her heart, the sharp blade of remorse. Would +they never have done punishing her? + +And then: "Maisie knows what you are. She told Eliot you were the most +beautiful thing, morally, she had ever known. The one person, she said, +whose motives would always be clean." + +If he had tried he couldn't have hit on anything that would have hurt +her so. It was more than she could bear to be punished like this through +the innocence of innocent people, through their kindness and affection, +their belief, their incorruptible trust in her. There was nothing in the +world she dreaded more than Maisie's trust. It was as if she foresaw +what it would do to her, how at any minute it would beat her, it would +break her down. + +But she was not beaten yet, not broken down. After every fit of remorse +her passion asserted itself again in a superb recovery. Her motives +might not be so spotless as they looked to Maisie, but her passion +itself was clean as fire. Nothing, not even Maisie's innocence, Maisie's +trust in her, could make her go back on it. Hard, wounding tears cut +through her eyelids as she thought of Maisie, but she brushed them away +and began counting the days till Jerrold should come back. + + +iii + +He came back the first week in June, in time for the hay harvest. And it +happened as she had foreseen. + +It would have been dangerous for Jerrold to have left the house at night +to go to the Manor Farm. At any moment he might have been betrayed by +his own footsteps treading the passages and stairs, by the slipping of +locks and bolts, the sound of the opening and shutting of doors. The +servants might be awake and hear him; they might go to his room and find +that he was not there. + +But Colin's shelter stood in a recess on the lawn, open to the fields +and hidden from the house by tall hedges of yew. Nobody could see him +slip out into the moonlight or the darkness; nobody could hear the soft +padding of his feet on the grass. He had only to run down the three +fields and cross the belt of firs to come to Anne's shelter at the +bottom. The blank, projecting wall of the mill hid it from the cottages +and the Manor Farm house; the firs hid it from the field path; a high +bank, topped by a stone wall, hid it from the road and Sutton's Farm. +Its three wooden walls held them safe. + +Night after night, between eleven and midnight, he came to her. Night +after night, she lay awake waiting till the light rustling of the meadow +grass told her he was there: on moonlit nights a quick brushing sound; +in the thick blackness a sound like a slow shearing as he felt his way. +The moon would show him clear, as he stood in the open frame of the +shelter, looking in at her; or she would see him grey, twilit and +mysterious; or looming, darker than dark, on black nights without moon +or stars. + +They loved the clear nights when their bodies showed to each other white +under the white moon; they loved the dark nights that brought them +close, shutting them in, annihilating every sensation but that of his +tense, hard muscles pressing down, of her body crushed and yielding, +tightening and slackening in surrender; of their brains swimming in +their dark ecstasy. + +They loved the warmth of each other's bodies in the hot windless nights; +they loved their smooth, clean coolness washed by the night wind. +Nothing, not even the sweet, haunting ghost of Maisie, came between. +They would fall asleep in each other's arms and lie there till dawn, +till Anne woke in a sudden fright. Always she had this fear that some +day they would sleep on into the morning, when the farm people would be +up and about. Jerrold lay still, tired out with satisfaction, sunk under +all the floors of sleep. She had to drag him up, with kisses first and +light stroking, then with a strong undoing of their embrace, pushing +back his heavy arms that fell again to her breast as she parted them. +Then she would wrench herself loose and shake him by the shoulders till +she woke him. He woke clean, with no ugly turning and yawning, but with +a great stretching of his strong body and a short, sudden laugh, the +laugh he had for danger. Then he would look at his wrist watch and show +it her, laughing again as she saw that this time, again, they were safe. +And they would lie a little while longer, looking into each other's +faces for the sheer joy of looking, reckless with impunity. And he would +start up suddenly with, "I say, Anne, I must clear out or we shall be +caught." And they would get up. + +Outside, the world looked young and unknown in the June dawn, in the +still, clear, gold-crystal air, where green leaves and green grass shone +with a strange, hard lustre like fresh paint, and yet unearthly, +uncreated, fixed in their own space and time. + +And she would go with him, her naked feet shining white on the queer, +bright, cold green of the grass, up the field to the belt of firs that +stood up, strange and eternal, under the risen sun. + +They parted there, holding each other for a last kiss, a last clinging, +as if never in this world they would meet again. + +Dawn after dawn. They belonged to the dawn and the dawn light; the dawn +was their day; they knew it as they knew no other time. + +And Anne would go back to her shelter, and lie there, and live through +their passion again in memory, till she fell asleep. + +And when she woke she would find the sweet, sad ghost of Maisie haunting +her, coming between her and the memory of her dark ecstasy. Maisie, +utterly innocent, utterly good, trusting her, sending Jerrold back to +her because she trusted her. Only to think of Maisie gave her a fearful +sense of insecurity. She thought: If I'd loved her I could never have +done it. If I were to love her even now that would end it. We couldn't +go on. She prayed God that she might not love her. + +By day the hard work of the farm stopped her thinking. And the next +night and the next dawn brought back her safety. + + +iv + +The hay harvest was over by the last week of June, and in the first week +of July Maisie had come back. + +Maisie or no Maisie, the work of the farm had to go on; and Anne felt +more than ever that it justified her. When the day of reckoning came, if +it ever did come, let her be judged by her work. Because of her love for +Jerrold here was this big estate held together, and kept going; because +of his love for her here was Jerrold, growing into a perfect farmer and +a perfect landlord; because of her he had found the one thing he was +best fitted to do; because of him she herself was valuable. Anne brought +to her work on the land a thoroughness that aimed continually at +perfection. She watched the starting of every tractor-plough and driller +as it broke fresh ground, to see that machines and men were working at +their highest pitch of efficiency. She demanded efficiency, and, on the +whole, she got it; she gave it by a sort of contagion. She wrung out of +the land the very utmost it was capable of yielding; she saw that there +was no waste of straw or hay, of grain or fertilizers; and she knew how +to take risks, spending big sums on implements and stock wherever she +saw a good chance of a return. + +Jerrold learned from her this perfection. Her work stood clear for the +whole countryside to see. Nobody could say she had not done well by the +land. When she first took on the Manor Farm it had stood only in the +second class; in four years she had raised it to the first. It was now +one of the best cultivated estates in the county and famous for its +prize stock. Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, +and Major Markham of Wyck Wold owned to an admiration for Anne Severn's +management. Her morals, they said, might be a trifle shady, but her +farming was above reproach. More reluctantly they admitted that she had +made something of that young rotter, Colin, even while they supposed +that he had been sent abroad to keep him out of Anne Severn's way. They +also supposed that as soon as he could do it decently Jerrold would get +rid of Anne. + +Then two things happened. In July Maisie Fielding came back and was seen +driving about the country with Anne Severn; and in the same month old +Sutton died and the Barrow Farm was let to Anne, thus establishing her +permanence. + +Anne had refused to take it from Jerrold as his gift. He had pressed her +persistently. + +"You might, Anne. It's the only thing I can give you. And what is it? A +scrubby two hundred acres." + +"It's a thundering lot of land, Jerrold. I can't take it." + +"You must. It isn't enough, after all you've done for us. I'd like to +give you everything I've got; Wyck Manor and the whole blessed estate to +the last turnip, and every cow and pig. But I can't do that. And you +used to say you wanted the Barrow Farm." + +"I wanted to rent it, Jerry darling. I can't let you give it me." + +"Why not? I think it's simply beastly of you not to." + +At that point Maisie had passed through the room with her flowers and he +had called to her to help him. + +"What are you two quarrelling about?" she said. + +"Why, I want to give her the Barrow Farm and she won't let me." + +"Of course I won't let him. A whole farm. How could I?" + +"I think you might, Anne. It would please him no end." + +"She thinks," Jerrold said, "she can go on doing things for us, but we +mustn't do anything for her. And I say it's beastly of her." + +"It is really, Anne darling. It's selfish. He wants to give it you so +awfully. He won't be happy if you won't take it." + +"But a farm, a whole thumping farm. It's a big house and two hundred +acres. How can I take a thing like that? You couldn't yourself if you +were me." + +Maisie's little white fingers flickered over the blue delphiniums +stacked in the blue-and-white Chinese jar. Her mauve-blue eyes were +smiling at Anne over the tops of the tall blue spires. + +"Don't you want to make him happy?" she said. + +"Not that way." + +"If it's the only way--?" + +She passed out of the room, still smiling, to gather more flowers. They +looked at each other. + +"Jerrold, I can't stand it when she says things like that." + +"No more can I. But you know, she really does want you to take that +farm." + +"Don't you see why I can't take it--from _you_? It's because we're +lovers." + +"I should have thought that made it easier." + +"It makes it impossible. I've _given_ myself to you. I can't take +anything. Besides, it would look as if I'd taken it for that." + +"That's an appalling idea, Anne." + +"It is. But it's what everybody'll think. They'll wonder what on earth +you did it for. We don't want people wondering about us. If they once +begin wondering they'll end by finding out." + +"I see. Perhaps you're right. I'm sorry." + +"It sticks out of us enough as it is. I can't think how Maisie doesn't +see it. But she never will. She'll never believe that we--" + +"Do you want her to see it?" + +"No, but it hurts so, her not seeing.... Jerrold, I believe that's the +punishment--Maisie's trusting us. It's the worst thing she could have +done to us." + +"Then, if we're punished we're quits. Don't think of it, Anne darling. +Don't let Maisie come in between us like that." + +He took her in his arms and kissed her, close and quick, so that no +thought could come between. + +But Maisie's sweetness had not done its worst. She had yet to prove what +she was and what she could do. + + +v + +July passed and August; the harvest was over. And in September Jerrold +went up to London to stay with Eliot for the week-end, and Anne stayed +with Maisie, because Maisie didn't like being left in the big house by +herself. Through all those weeks that was the way Maisie had her, +through her need of her. + +And on the Thursday before Anne came Maisie had called on Mrs. Hawtrey +of Medlicote, and Mrs. Hawtrey had asked her to lunch with her on the +following Monday. Maisie said she was afraid she couldn't lunch on +Monday because Anne Severn would be with her, and Mrs. Hawtrey said she +was very sorry, but she was afraid she couldn't ask Anne Severn. + +And Maisie enquired in her tender voice, "Why not?" + +And Mrs. Hawtrey replied, "Because, my dear, nobody here does ask Anne +Severn." + +Maisie said again, "Why not?" + +Then Mrs. Hawtrey said she didn't want to go into it, the whole thing +was so unpleasant, but nobody _did_ call on Anne Severn. She was too +well known. + +And at that Maisie rose in her fragile dignity and said that nobody knew +Anne Severn so well as she and her husband did, and that there was +nobody in the world so absolutely _good_ as Anne, and that she couldn't +possibly know anybody who refused to know her, and so left Mrs. Hawtrey. + +The evening Jerrold came home, Maisie, flushed with pleasure, +entertained him with a report of the encounter. + +"So you've given an ultimatum to the county." + +"Yes. I told you I'd cut them all if they went on cutting Anne. And now +they know it." + +"That means that you won't know anybody, Maisie. Except for Anne and me +you'll be absolutely alone here." + +"I don't care. I don't want anybody but you and Anne. And if I do we can +ask somebody down. There are lots of amusing people who'd come. And +Eliot can bring his scientific crowd. It simply means that Corbetts and +Hawtreys won't be asked to meet them, that's all." + +She went upstairs to lie down before dinner, and presently Anne came to +him in the drawing-room. She was dressed in her riding coat and breeches +as she had come off the land. + +"What do you think Maisie's done now?" he said. + +"I don't know. Something that'll make me feel awful, I suppose." + +"If you're going to take it like that I won't tell you." + +"Yes. Tell me. Tell me. I'd rather know." + +He told her as Maisie had told him. + +"Can't you see her, standing up to the whole county? Pounding them with +her little hands." + +His vision of the gentle thing, rising up in that sudden sacred fury of +protection, moved him to admiring, tender laughter. It made Anne burst +into tears. + +"Oh, Jerrold, that's the worst that's happened yet. Everybody'll cut +her, because of me." + +"Bless you, she won't care. She says she doesn't care about anybody but +you and me." + +"But that's the awful thing, her caring. That's the punishment. The +punishment." + +Again he took her in his arms and comforted her. + +"What am I to do, Jerry? What am I to _do?_" + +"Go to her," he said, "and say something nice." + +"Go to her and take my punishment?" + +"Well, yes, darling, I'm afraid you've got to take it. We can't have it +both ways. It wouldn't _be_ a punishment if you weren't so sweet, if you +didn't mind so. I wish to God I'd never told you." + +She held her head high. + +"I made you. I'm glad you told me." + +She went up to Maisie in her room. Maisie had dressed for dinner and lay +on her couch, looking exquisite and fragile in a gown of thick white +lace. She gave a little soft cry as Anne came to her. + +"Anne, you've been crying. What is it, darling?" + +"Nothing. Only Jerrold told me what you'd done." + +"Done?" + +"Yes, for me. Why did you do it, Maisie?" + +"Why? I suppose it was because I love you. It was the least I could do." + +She held out her hands to her. Anne knelt down, crouching on the floor +beside her, with her face hidden against Maisie's body. Maisie put her +arm round her. + +"But why are you crying about it, Anne? You never cry. I can't bear it. +It's like seeing Jerrold cry." + +"It's because you're so good, so good, and I'm such a brute. You don't +know what a brute I am." + +"Oh yes, I know." + +"Do you?" she said, sharply. For one moment she thought that Maisie did +indeed know, know and understand so perfectly that she forgave. This was +forgiveness. + +"Of course I do. And so does Jerrold. _He_ knows what a brute you are." + +It was not forgiveness. It was Maisie's innocence again, her trust--the +punishment. Anne knelt there and took the pain of it. + + +vi + +She lay awake, alone in her shelter. She had given the excuse of a +racking headache to keep Jerrold from coming to her. For that she had +had to lie. But what was her whole existence but a lie? A lie told by +her silence under Maisie's trust in her, by her acceptance of Maisie's +friendship, by her acquiescence in Maisie's preposterous belief. Every +minute that she let Maisie go on loving and trusting and believing in +her she lied. And the appalling thing was that she couldn't be alone in +her lying. So long as Maisie trusted him Jerrold lied, too--Jerrold, who +was truth itself. One moment she thought: That's what I've brought him +to. That's how I've dragged him down. The next she saw that reproach as +the very madness of her conscience. She had not dragged Jerrold down; +she had raised him to his highest intensity of loving, she had brought +him, out of the illusion of his life with Maisie, to reality and kept +him there in an immaculate faithfulness. Not even for one insane moment +did Anne admit that there was anything wrong or shameful in their +passion itself. It was Maisie's innocence that made them liars, Maisie's +goodness that put them in the wrong and brought shame on them, her truth +that falsified them. + +No woman less exquisite in goodness could have moved her to this +incredible remorse. It took the whole of Maisie, in her unique +perfection, to beat her and break her down. Her first instinct in +refusing to know Maisie had been profoundly right. It was as if she had +foreseen, even then, that knowing Maisie would mean loving her, and +that, loving her, she would be beaten and broken down. The awful thing +was that she did love Maisie; and she couldn't tell which was the worse +to bear, her love for Maisie or Maisie's love for her. And who could +have foreseen the pain of it? When she prayed that she might take the +whole punishment, she had not reckoned on this refinement and precision +of torture. God knew what he was about. With all his resources he +couldn't have hit on anything more delicately calculated to hurt. +Nothing less subtle would have touched her. Not discovery; not the +grossness of exposure; but this intolerable security. What could +discovery and exposure do but set her free in her reality? Anne would +have rejoiced to see her lie go up in one purifying flame of revelation. +But to go safe in her lie, hiding her reality, and yet defenceless under +the sting of Maisie's loving, was more than she could bear. She had +brought all her truth and all her fineness to this passion which +Maisie's innocence made a sin, and she was punished where she had +sinned, wounded by the subtle God in her fineness and her truth. If only +Jerrold could have escaped, but he was vulnerable, too; there was +fineness and truth in him. To suffer really he had to be wounded in his +soul. + +If Jerrold was hurt then they must end it. + +As yet he had given no sign of feeling; but that was like him. Up to the +last minute he would fight against feeling, and when it came he would +refuse to own that he suffered, that there was any cause for suffering. +It would be like the time when his father was dying, when he refused to +see that he was dying. So he would refuse to see Maisie and then, all at +once, he would see her and he would be beaten and broken down. + + +vii + +And suddenly he did see her. + +It was on the first Sunday after Jerrold's return. Maisie had had +another of her heart attacks, by herself, in her bed, the night before; +and she had been lying down all day. The sun had come round on to the +terrace, and she now rested there, wrapped in a fur coat and leaning +back on her cushions in the garden chair. + +They were sitting out there, all three, Jerrold and Anne talking +together, and Maisie listening with her sweet, attentive eyes. Suddenly +she shut her eyes and ceased to listen. Jerrold and Anne went on talking +with hushed voices, and in a little while Maisie was asleep. + +Her head, rising out of the brown fur, was tilted back on the cushions, +showing her innocent white throat; her white violet eyelids were shut +down on her eyes, the dark lashes lying still; her mouth, utterly +innocent, was half open; her breath came through it unevenly, in light +jerks. + +"She's asleep, Jerrold." + +They sat still, making no sound. + +And as she looked at Maisie sleeping, tears came again into Anne's eyes, +the hard tears that cut her eyelids and spilled themselves, drop by slow +drop, heavily. She tried to wipe them away secretly with her hand before +Jerrold saw them; but they came again and again and he had seen. He had +risen to his feet as if he would go, then checked himself and stood +beside her; and together they looked on at Maisie's sleeping; they felt +together the infinite anguish, the infinite pathos of her goodness and +her trust. The beauty of her spirit lay bare to them in the white, +tilted face, slackened and smoothed with sleep. Sleep showed them her +innocence again, naked and helpless. They saw her in her poignant being, +her intense reality. She was so real that in that moment nothing else +mattered to them. + +Anne set her teeth hard to keep her mouth still. She saw Jerrold glance +at her, she heard him give a soft groan of pity or of pain; then he +moved away from them and stood by the terrace wall with his back to her. +She saw his clenched hands, and through his terrible, tense quietness +she knew by the quivering of his shoulders that his breast heaved. Then +she saw him grasp the terrace wall and grind the edge of it into the +palms of his hands. That was how he had stood by his father's deathbed, +gripping the foot-rail; and when presently he turned and came to her she +saw the look on his face she had seen then, of young, blind agony, +sharpened now with some more piercing spiritual pain. + +"Come," he said, "come into the house." + +They went together, side by side, as they had gone when they were +children, along the terrace and down the steps into the drive. In the +shelter of the hall she gave way and cried, openly and helplessly, like +a child, and he put his arm round her and led her into the library, away +from the place where Maisie was. They sat together on the couch, holding +each other's hands, clinging together in their suffering, their memory +of what Maisie had made their sin. Even so they had sat in Anne's room, +on the edge of Anne's bed, when they were children, holding each other's +hands, miserable and yet glad because they were brought together, +because what they had done and what they had borne they had done and +borne together. And now as then he comforted her. + +"Don't cry, Anne darling; it isn't your fault. I made you." + +"You didn't. You didn't. I wanted you and I made you come to me. And I +knew what it would be like and you didn't." + +"Nobody could have known. Don't go back on it." + +"I'm not going back on it. If only I'd never seen Maisie--then I +wouldn't have cared. We could have gone on." + +"Do you mean we can't now?" + +"Yes. How can we when she's such an angel to us and trusts us so?" + +"It does make it pretty beastly," he said. + +"It makes me feel absolutely rotten." + +"So it does me, when I think about it." + +"It's knowing her, Jerry. It's having to love her, and knowing that she +loves me; it's knowing what she is.... Why did you make me see her?" + +"You know why." + +"Yes. Because it made it safer. That's the beastliness of it. I knew how +it would be. I knew she'd beat us in the end--with her goodness." + +"Darling, it _isn't_ your fault." + +"It _is_. It's all my fault. I'm not going back on it. I'd do it again +to-morrow if it weren't for Maisie. Even now I don't know whether it's +right or wrong. I only know it's the most real and valuable part of me +that loves you, and it's the most real and valuable part of you that +loves me; and I feel somehow that that makes it right. I'd go on with it +if it made you happy. But you aren't happy now." + +"I'm not happy because you're not. I don't mind for myself so much. Only +I hate the beastly way we've got to do it. Covering it all up and +pretending that we're not lovers. Deceiving her. That's what makes it +all wrong. Hiding it." + +"I know. And I made you do that." + +"You didn't. We did it for Maisie. Anyhow, we must stop it. We can't go +on like this any more. We must simply tell her." + +"_Tell_ her?" + +"Yes; tell her, and get her to divorce me, so that I can marry you. It's +the only straight thing." + +"How can we? It would hurt her so awfully." + +"Not so much as you think. Remember, she doesn't care for me. She's not +like you, Anne. She's frightfully cold." + +As he said it there came to her a sudden awful intimation of reality, a +sense that behind all their words, all the piled-up protection of their +outward thinking, there hid an unknown certainty, a certainty that would +wreck them if they knew it. It was safer not to know, to go on hiding +behind those piled-up barriers of thought. But an inward, ultimate +honesty drove her to her questioning. + +"Are you sure she's cold?" + +"Absolutely sure. You go on thinking all the time that she's like you, +that she takes things as hard as you do; but she doesn't. She doesn't +feel as you do. It won't hurt her as it would hurt you if I left you for +somebody else." + +"But--it'll hurt her." + +"It's better to hurt her a little now than to go on humbugging and +shamming till she finds out. That would hurt her damnably. She'd hate +our not being straight with her. But if we tell her the truth she'll +understand. I'm certain she'll understand and she'll forgive _you_. She +can't be hard on you for caring for me." + +"Even if she doesn't care?" + +"She cares for _you_," he said. + +She couldn't push it from her, that importunate sense of a certainty +that was not his certainty. If Maisie did care for him Jerrold wouldn't +see it. He never saw what he didn't want to see. + +"Supposing she _does_ care all the time? How do you know she doesn't?" + +"I don't think I can tell you." + +"But I _must_ know, Jerrold. It makes all the difference." + +"It makes none to me, Anne. I'd want you whether Maisie cared for me or +not. But she doesn't." + +"If I thought she didn't--then--then I shouldn't mind her knowing. Why +are you so certain? You might tell me." + +Then he told her. + +After all, that sense of hidden certainty was an illusion. + +"When was that, Jerrold?" + +"Oh, a night or two after she came down here in April. She didn't know, +poor darling, how she let me off." + +"April--September. And she's stuck to it?" + +"Oh--stuck to it. Rather." + +"And before that?" + +"Before that we were all right." + +"And she'd been away, too." + +"Yes. Ages. That made it all the funnier." + +"I wish you'd told me before." + +"I wish I had, if it makes you happier." + +"It does. Still, we can't go on, Jerrold, till she knows." + +"Of course we can't. It's too awful. I'll tell her. And we'll go away +somewhere while she's divorcing me, and stay away till I can marry +you.... It'll be all different when we've got away." + +"When you've told her. We ought to have told her long ago, before it +happened." + +"Yes. But now--what the devil _am_ I to tell her?" + +He saw, as if for the first time, what telling her would mean. + +"Tell her the truth. The whole truth." + +"How can I--when it's _you_?" + +"It's because it _is_ me that you've got to tell her. If you don't, +Jerrold, I'll tell her myself." + +"All right. I'll tell her at once and get it over. I'll tell her +tonight." + +"No. Not tonight, while she's so tired. Wait till she's rested." + +And Jerrold waited. + + + +XVI + + +ANNE, MAISIE, AND JERROLD + +i + +Jerrold waited, and Maisie got her truth in first. + +It was on the Wednesday, a fine bright day in September, and Jerrold was +to have driven Maisie and Anne over to Oxford in the car. And, ten +minutes before starting, Maisie had declared herself too tired to go. +Anne wouldn't go without her, and Jerrold, rather sulky, had set off by +himself. He couldn't understand Maisie's sudden fits of fatigue when +there was nothing the matter with her. He thought her capricious and +hysterical. She was acquiring his mother's perverse habit of upsetting +your engagements at the last moment; and lately she had been +particularly tiresome about motoring. Either they were going too fast or +too far, or the wind was too strong; and he would have to turn back, or +hold himself in and go slowly. And the next time she would refuse to go +at all for fear of spoiling their pleasure. She liked it better when +Anne drove her. + +And today Jerrold was annoyed with Maisie because of Anne. If it hadn't +been for Maisie, Anne would have been with him, enjoying a day's holiday +for once. Really, Maisie might have thought of Anne and Anne's pleasure. +It wasn't like her not to think of other people. Yet he owned that she +hadn't wanted Anne to stay with her. He could hear her pathetic voice +imploring Anne to go "because Jerry won't like it if you don't." Also he +knew that if Anne was determined not to do a thing nothing you could say +would make her do it. + +He had had time to think about it as he sat in the lounge of the hotel +at Oxford waiting for the friends who were to lunch with him. And +suddenly his annoyance had turned to pity. + +It was no wonder if Maisie was hysterical. His life with her was all +wrong, all horribly unnatural. She ought to have had children. Or he +ought never to have married her. It had been all wrong from the +beginning. Perhaps she had been aware that there was something missing. +Perhaps not. Maisie had seemed always singularly unaware. That was +because she didn't care for him. Perhaps, if he had loved her +passionately she would have cared more. Perhaps not. Maisie was +incurably cold. She shrank from the slightest gesture of approach; she +was afraid of any emotion. She was one of those unhappy women who are +born with an aversion from warm contacts, who cannot give themselves. +What puzzled him was the union of such a temperament with Maisie's +sweetness and her charm He had noticed that other men adored her. He +knew that if it had not been for Anne he might have adored her, too. And +again he wondered whether it would have made any difference to Maisie if +he had. + +He thought not. She was happy, as it was, in her gentle, unexcited way. +Happy and at peace. Giving happiness and peace, if peace were what you +wanted. It was that happiness and peace of Maisie's that had drawn him +to her when he gave Anne up three years ago. + +And again he couldn't understand this combination of hysteria and +perfect peace. He couldn't understand Maisie. + +Perhaps, after all, she had got what she had wanted. She wouldn't have +been happy and at peace if she had been married to some brute who would +have had no pity, who would have insisted on his rights. Some faithful +brute; or some brute no more faithful to her than he, who had been +faithful only to Anne. + +As he thought of Anne darkness came down over his brain. His mind +struggled through it, looking for the light. + +The entrance of his friends cut short his struggling. + + +ii + +Maisie lay on the couch in the library, and Anne sat with her. Maisie's +eyes had been closed, but now they had opened, and Anne saw them looking +at her and smiling. + +"You are a darling, Anne; but I wish you'd gone with Jerrold." + +"I don't. I wouldn't have liked it a bit." + +"_He_ would, though." + +"Not when he thought of you left here all by yourself." + +Maisie smiled again. + +"Jerry doesn't think, thank Goodness." + +"Why 'thank Goodness'?" + +"Because I don't want him to. I don't want him to see." + +"To see what?" + +"Why, that I can't do things like other people." + +"Maisie--_why_ can't you? You used to. Jerrold's told me how you used to +rush about, dancing and golfing and playing tennis." + +"Why? Did he say anything?" + +"Only that you took a lot of exercise, and he thinks it's awfully bad +for you knocking it all off now." + +"Dear old Jerry. Of course he must think it frightfully stupid. But I +can't help it, Anne. I can't do things now like I used to. I've got to +be careful." + +"But--why?" + +"Because there's something wrong with my heart. Jerry doesn't know it. I +don't want him to know." + +"You don't mean seriously wrong?" + +"Not very serious. But it hurts." + +"Hurts?" + +"Yes. And the pain frightens me. Every time it comes I think I'm going +to die. But I don't die." + +"Oh--_Maisie_--what sort of pain?" + +"A disgusting pain, Anne. As if it was full of splintered glass, mixed +up with bubbling blood, cutting and tearing. It grabs at you and you +choke; you feel as if your face would burst. You're afraid to breathe +for fear it should come again." + +"But, Maisie, that's angina." + +"It isn't real angina; but it's awful, all the same. Oh, Anne, what must +the real thing be like?" + +"Have you seen a doctor?" + +"Yes, two. A man in London and a man in Torquay." + +"Do they say it isn't the real thing?" + +"Yes. It's all nerves. But it's every bit as bad as if it was real, +except that I can't die of it." + +"Poor little Maisie--I didn't know." + +"I didn't mean you to know. But I _had_ to tell somebody. It's so awful +being by yourself with it and being frightened. And then I'm afraid all +the time of Jerrold finding out. I'm afraid of his _seeing_ me when it +comes on." + +"But, Maisie darling, he ought to know. You ought to tell him." + +"No. I haven't told my father and mother because they'd tell him. +Luckily it's only come on in the night, so that he hasn't seen. But it +might come on anywhere, any minute. If I'm excited or anything ... +That's the awful thing, Anne; I'm afraid of getting excited. I'm afraid +to feel. I'm afraid of everything that makes me feel. I'm afraid of +Jerrold's touching me, even of his saying something nice to me. The +least thing makes my silly heart tumble about, and if it tumbles too +much the pain comes. I daren't let Jerrold sleep with me." + +"Yet you haven't told him." + +"No; I daren't." + +"You _must_ tell him, Maisie." + +"I won't. He'd mind horribly. He'd be frightened and miserable, and I +can't bear him to be frightened and miserable. He's had enough. He's +been through the war. I don't mean that that frightened him; but this +would." + +"Do you mean to say he doesn't see it?" + +"Bless you, no. He just thinks I'm tiresome and hysterical. I'd rather +he thought that than see him unhappy. Nothing in the world matters but +Jerrold. You see I care for him so frightfully.... You don't know how +awful it is, caring like that, and yet having to beat him back all the +time, never to give him anything. I daren't let him come near me because +of that ghastly fright. I know you oughtn't to be afraid of pain, but +it's a pain that makes you afraid. Being afraid's all part of it. So I +can't help it." + +"Of course you can't help it." + +"I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for Jerry. I ought never to have married +him." + +"But, Maisie, I can't understand it. You're always so happy and calm. +How can you be calm and happy with _that_ hanging over you?" + +"I've got to be calm for fear of it. And I'm happy because Jerrold's +there. Simply knowing that he's there.... I can't think what I'd do, +Anne, if he wasn't such an angel. Some men wouldn't be. They wouldn't +stand it. And that makes me care all the more. He'll never know how I +care." + +"You must tell him." + +"There it is. I daren't even try to tell him. I just live in perpetual +funk." + +"And you're the bravest thing that ever lived." + +"Oh, I've got to cover it up. It wouldn't do to show it. But I'm glad +I've told you." + +She leaned back, panting. + +"I mustn't talk--any more now." + +"No. Rest." + +"You won't mind?... But--get a book--and read. You'll be--so bored." + +She shut her eyes. + +Anne got a book and tried to read it; but the words ran together, grey +lines tangled on a white page. Nothing was clear to her but the fact +that Maisie had told the truth about herself. + +It was the worst thing that had happened yet. It was the supreme +reproach, the ultimate disaster and defeat. Yet Maisie had not told her +anything that surprised her. This was the certainty that hid behind the +defences of their thought, the certainty she had foreseen when Jerrold +told her about Maisie's coldness. It meant that Jerrold couldn't escape, +and that his punishment would be even worse than hers. Nothing that +Maisie could have done would have been more terrible to Jerrold than her +illness and the way she had hidden it from him; the poor darling going +in terror of it, lying in bed alone, night after night, shut in with her +terror. Jerrold was utterly vulnerable; his belief in Maisie's +indifference had been his only protection against remorse. How was he +going to bear Maisie's wounding love? How would he take the knowledge of +it? + +Anne saw what must come of his knowing. It would be the end of their +happiness. After this they would have to give each other up; he would +never take her in his arms again; he would never come to her again in +the fields between midnight and dawn. They couldn't go on unless they +told Maisie the truth; and they couldn't tell Maisie the truth now, +because the truth would bring the pain back to her poor little heart. +They could never be straight with her; they would have to hide what they +had done for ever. Maisie had silenced them for ever when she got her +truth in first. To Anne it was not thinkable, either that they should go +on being lovers, knowing about Maisie, or that she should keep her +knowledge to herself. She would tell Jerrold and end it. + + +iii + +She stayed on with Maisie till the evening. + +Jerrold had come back and was walking home with her through the Manor +fields when she made up her mind that she would tell him now; at the +next gate--the next--when they came to the belt of firs she would tell +him. + +She stopped him there by the fence of the plantation. The darkness hid +them from each other, only their faces and Anne's white coat glimmered +through. + +"Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you something. About Maisie." + +He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the sudden start and check of +his hurt mind. + +"You haven't told her?" he said. + +"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want you to know. But +you've got to know it. You think she doesn't care for you, and she does; +she cares awfully. But--she's ill." + +"Ill? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is. I know Maisie." + +"You don't know that she gets heart attacks. Frightful pain, Jerrold, +pain that terrifies her." + +"My God--you don't mean she's got _angina_?" + +"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead. But pain so bad that +she thinks she's dying every time. It's what they call false angina. +That's why she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll come +on and you'll see her." + +Through the darkness she could feel the vibration of his shock; it came +to her in his stillness. + +"You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel because feeling brings +it on." + +He spoke at last. "Why on earth couldn't she tell me that?" + +"Because she loves you so awfully. The poor darling didn't want you to +be unhappy about her." + +"As if that mattered." + +"It matters more than anything to her." + +"Do you really mean that she's got that hellish thing? Who told her what +it was?" + +"Some London doctor and a man at Torquay." + +"I shall take her up to-morrow and make her see a specialist." + +"If you do you mustn't let her know I told you, or she'll never tell me +anything again." + +"What am I to say?" + +"Say you've been worried about her." + +"God knows I ought to have been." + +"You're worried about her, and you think there's something wrong. If she +says there isn't, you'll say that's what you want to be sure of." + +"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the real thing?" + +"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a +moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you +don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin." + +He was silent for a second. + +"Anne--she's beaten us. We can't tell her now." + +"No. And we can't go on. If we can't be straight about it we've got to +give each other up." + +"I know. We can't go on. There's nothing more to be said." + +His voice dropped on her aching heart with the toneless weight of +finality. + +"We've got to end it now, this minute," she said. "Don't come any +farther." + +"Let me go to the bottom of the field." + +"No. I'm not going that way." + +He had come close to her now, close, as though he would have taken her +in his arms for the last night, the last time. He wanted to touch her, +to hold her back from the swallowing darkness. But she moved out of his +reach and he did not follow her. His passion was ready to flame up if he +touched her, and he was afraid. They must end it clean, without a word +or a touch. + +The grass drive between the firs led to a gate on the hill road that +skirted the Manor fields. He knew that she would go from him that way, +because she didn't want to pass by their shelter at the bottom. She +couldn't sleep in it tonight. + +He stood still and watched her go, her white coat glimmering in the +darkness between the black rows of firs. The white gate glimmered at the +end of the drive. She stood there a moment. He saw her slip like a white +ghost between the gate and the gate post; he heard the light thud of the +wooden latch falling back behind her, and she was gone. + + + +XVII + + +JERROLD, MAISIE, ANNE, ELIOT + +i + +Maisie lay in bed, helpless and abandoned to her illness. It was no good +trying to cover it up and hide it any more. Jerrold knew. + +The night when he left Anne he had gone up to Maisie in her room. He +couldn't rest unless he knew that she was all right. He had stooped over +her to kiss her and she had sat up, holding her face to him, her hands +clasped round his neck, drawing him close to her, when suddenly the pain +gripped her and she lay back in his arms, choking, struggling for +breath. + +Jerrold thought she was dying. He waited till the pain passed and she +was quieted, then he ran downstairs and telephoned for Ransome. He +looked on in agony while Ransome's stethoscope wandered over Maisie's +thin breast and back. It seemed to him that Ransome was taking an +unusually long time about it, that he must be on the track of some +terrible discovery. And when Ransome took the tubes from his ears and +said, curtly, "Heart quite sound; nothing wrong there," he was convinced +that Ransome was an old fool who didn't know his business. Or else he +was lying for Maisie's sake. + +Downstairs in the library he turned on him. + +"Look here; there's no good lying to me. I want truth." + +"My dear Fielding, I shouldn't dream of lying to you. There's nothing +wrong with your wife's heart. Nothing organically wrong." + +"With that pain? She was in agony, Ransome, agony. Why can't you tell me +at once that it's angina?" + +"Because it isn't. Not the real thing. False angina's a neurosis, not a +heart disease. Get the nervous condition cured and she'll be all right. +Has she had any worry? Any shock?" + +"Not that I know." + +"Any cause for worry?" + +He hesitated. Poor Maisie had had cause enough if she had known. But she +didn't know. It seemed to him that Ransome was looking at him queerly. + +"No," he said. "None." + +"You're quite certain? Has she ever had any?" + +"Well, I suppose she was pretty jumpy all the time I was at the front." + +"Before that? Years ago?" + +"That I don't know. I should say not." + +"You won't swear?" + +"No. I won't swear. It would be years before we were married." + +"Try and find out," said Ransome. "And keep her quiet and happy. She'd +better stay in bed for a week or two." + +So Maisie stayed in bed, and Jerrold and Anne sat with her, together or +in turn. He had a bed made up in her room and slept there when he slept +at all. But half the night he lay awake, listening for the sound of her +panting and the little gasping cry that would come when the pain got +her. He kept on getting up to look at her and make sure that she was +sleeping. + +He was changed from his old happy, careless self, the self that used to +turn from any trouble, that refused to believe that the people it loved +could be ill and die. He was convinced that Maisie's state was +dangerous. He sent for Dr. Harper of Cheltenham and for a nerve +specialist and a heart specialist from London and they all told him the +same thing. And he wouldn't believe them. Because Maisie's death was the +most unbearable thing that his remorse could imagine, he felt that +nothing short of Maisie's death would appease the powers that punished +him. He was the more certain that Maisie would die because he had denied +that she was ill. For Jerrold's mind remembered everything and +anticipated nothing. Like most men who refuse to see or foresee trouble, +he was crushed by it when it came. + +The remorse he felt might have been less intolerable if he had been +alone in it; but, day after day, his pain was intensified by the sight +of Anne's pain. She was exquisitely vulnerable, and for every pang that +stabbed her he felt himself responsible. What they had done they had +done together, and they suffered for it together, but in the beginning +she had done it for him, and he had made her do it. Nobody, not even +Maisie, could have been more innocent than Anne. He had no doubt that, +left to herself, she would have hidden her passion from him to the end +of time. He, therefore, was the cause of her suffering. + +It was as if Anne's consciousness were transferred to him, day after +day, when they sat together in Maisie's room, one on each side of her +bed, while Maisie lay between them, sleeping her helpless and +reproachful sleep, and he saw Anne's piteous face, white with pain. His +pity for Maisie and his pity for Anne, their pity for each other were +mixed together and held them, close as passion, in an unbearable +communion. + +They looked at each other, and their wounded eyes said, day after day, +the same thing: "Yes, it hurts. But I could bear it if it were not for +you." Their pity took the place of passion. It was as if a part of each +other passed into them with their suffering as it had passed into them +with their joy. + + +ii + +And through it all their passion itself still lived its inextinguishable +and tortured life. Pity, so far from destroying it, only made it +stronger, pouring in its own emotion, wave after wave, swelling the +flood that carried them towards the warm darkness where will and thought +would cease. + +And as Jerrold's soul had once stirred in the warm darkness under the +first stinging of remorse, so now it pushed and struggled to be born; +all his will fought against the darkness to deliver his soul. His soul +knew that Anne saved it. If her will had been weaker his would not have +been so strong. At this moment an unscrupulous Anne might have damned +him to the sensual hell by clinging to his pity. He would have sinned +because he was sorry for her. + +But Anne's will refused his pity. When he showed it she was angry. Yet +it was there, waiting for her always, against her will. + +One day in October (Maisie's illness lasting on into the autumn) they +had gone out into the garden to breathe the cold, clean air while Maisie +slept. + +"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "do you think she knows?" + +"No. I'm certain she doesn't." + +"I'm not. I've an awful feeling that she knows and that's why she +doesn't get better." + +"I don't think so. If she knew she'd have said something or done +something." + +"She mightn't. She mightn't do anything. Perhaps she's just being +angelically good to us." + +"She _is_ angelically good. But she doesn't know. You forget her illness +began before there _was_ anything to know. It isn't the sort of thing +she'd think of. If somebody told her she wouldn't believe it. She trusts +us absolutely.... That's bad enough, Anne, without her knowing." + +"Yes. It's bad enough. It's worse, really." + +"I know it is.... Anne--I'm awfully sorry to have let you in for all +this misery." + +"You mustn't be sorry. You haven't let me in for it. Nobody could have +known it would have happened. It wouldn't, if Maisie had been different. +We wouldn't have bothered then. Nothing would have mattered. Think how +gloriously happy we were. All my life all my happiness has come through +you or because of you. We'd be happy still if it wasn't for Maisie." + +"I don't see how we're to go on like this. I can't stand it when you're +not happy. And nothing makes any difference, really. I want you so +awfully all the time." + +"That's one of the things we mustn't say to each other." + +"I know we mustn't. Only I didn't want you to think I didn't." + +"I don't think it. I know you'll care for me as long as you live. Only +you mustn't say so. You mustn't be sorry for me. It makes me feel all +weak and soft when I want to be strong and hard." + +"You _are_ strong, Anne." + +"So are you. I shouldn't love you if you weren't. But we mustn't make it +too hard for each other. You know what'll happen if we do?" + +"What? You mean we'd crumple up and give in?" + +"No. But we couldn't ever see each other alone again. Never see each +other again at all, perhaps. I'd have to go away." + +"You shan't have to. I swear I won't say another word." + +"Sometimes I think it would be easier for you if I went." + +"It wouldn't. It would be simply damnable. You can't go, Anne. That +_would_ make Maisie think." + + +iii + +After weeks of rest Maisie passed into a period of painless +tranquillity. She had no longer any fear of her illness because she had +no longer any fear of Jerrold's knowing about it. He did know, and yet +her world stood firm round her, firmer than when he had not known. For +she had now in Jerrold's ceaseless devotion what seemed to her the +absolute proof that he cared for her, if she had ever doubted it. And if +he had doubted her, hadn't he the absolute proof that she cared, +desperately? Would she have so hidden the truth from him, would she have +borne her pain and the fear of it, in that awful lonely secrecy, if she +had not cared for him more than for anything on earth? She had been more +afraid to sleep alone than poor Colin who had waked them with his +screaming. Jerrold knew that she was not a brave woman like Anne or +Colin's wife, Queenie; it was out of her love for him that she had drawn +the courage that made her face, night after night, the horror of her +torment alone. If he had wanted proof, what better proof could he have +than that? + +So Maisie remained tranquil, secure in her love for Jerrold, and in his +love for her, while Anne and Jerrold were tortured by their love for +each other. They were no longer sustained in their renunciation by the +sight of Maisie's illness and the fear of it which more than anything +had held back their passion. Without that warning fear they were exposed +at every turn. It might be there, waiting for them in the background, +but, with Maisie going about as if nothing had happened, even remorse +had lost its protective poignancy. They suffered the strain of perpetual +frustration. They were never alone together now. They had passed from +each other, beyond all contact of spirit with spirit and flesh with +flesh, beyond all words and looks of longing; they had nothing of each +other but sight, sight that had all the violence of touch without its +satisfaction, that served only to excite them, to torture them with +desire. They might be held at arm's length, at a room's length, at a +field's length apart, but their eyes drew them together, set their +hearts beating; in one moment of seeing they were joined and put +asunder. + +And, day after day, their minds desired each other with a subtle, +incessant, intensely conscious longing, and were utterly cut off from +all communion. They met now at longer and longer intervals, for their +work separated them. Colin had come home in October, perfectly +recovered, and he and Jerrold managed the Manor estate together while +Anne looked after her own farm. Jerrold never saw her, he never tried to +see her unless Colin or Maisie or some of the farm people were present; +he was afraid and Anne knew that he was afraid. Her sense of his danger +made her feel herself fragile and unstable. She, too, avoided every +occasion of seeing him alone. + +And this separation, so far from saving them, defeated its own end. +Every day it brought them nearer to the breaking point. It was against +all nature and all nature was against it. They had always before them +that vision of the point at which they would give in. Always there was +one thought that drew them to the edge of surrender: "I can bear it for +myself, but I can't bear it for him," "I can bear it for myself, but I +can't bear it for her." + +And to both of them had come another fear, greater than their dread of +Maisie's pain, the fear of each other's illness. Their splendid physical +health was beginning to break down. They worked harder than ever on the +land; but hard work exhausted them at the end of the day. They went on +from a sense of duty, dull and implacable, but they had no more pleasure +in it. Anne became every night more restless, every day more tired and +anaemic. Jerrold ate less and slept less. They grew thin, and their +faces took on the same look of fatigue and anxiety and wonder, as if, +more than anything, they were amazed at a world whose being connived at +and tolerated their pain. + +Maisie saw it and felt the first vague disturbance of her peace. Her +illness had worried everybody while it lasted, but she couldn't think +why, when she was well again, Anne and Jerrold should go on looking like +that. Maisie thought it was physical; the poor dears worked too hard. + +The change had been so gradual that she saw it without consternation, +but when Eliot came down in November he couldn't hide his distress. To +Eliot the significant thing was not Anne's illness or Jerrold's illness +but the likeness in their illnesses, the likeness in their faces. It was +clear that they suffered together, with the same suffering, from the +same cause. And when on his last evening Jerrold took him into the +library to consult him about Maisie's case, Eliot had a hard, straight +talk with him about his own. + +"My dear Jerrold," he said, "there's nothing seriously wrong with +Maisie. I've examined her heart. It isn't a particularly strong heart, +but there's no disease in it. If you took her to all the specialists in +Europe they'd tell you the same thing." + +"I know, but I keep on worrying." + +"That, my dear chap, is because you're ill yourself. I don't like it. +I'm not bothered about Maisie, but I am bothered about you and Anne." + +"Anne? Do you think _Anne's_ ill?" + +"I think she will be, and so will you if... What have you been doing?" + +"We've been doing nothing." + +"That's it. You've got to do something and do it pretty quick if it's to +be any good." + +Jerrold started and looked up. He wondered whether Eliot knew. He had a +way of getting at things, you couldn't tell how. + +"What d'you mean? What are you talking about?" His words came with a +sudden sharp rapidity. + +"You know what I mean." + +"I don't know how _you_ know anything. And, as a matter of fact, you +don't." + +"I don't know much. But I know enough to see that you two can't go on +like this." + +"Maisie and me?" + +"No. You and Anne. It's Anne I'm talking about. I suppose you can make a +mess of your own life if you like. You've no business to make a mess of +hers." + +"My God! as if I didn't know it. What the devil am I to do?" + +"Leave her alone, Jerrold, if you can't have her." + +"Leave her alone? I _am_ leaving her alone. I've got to leave her alone, +if we both die of it." + +"She ought to go away," Eliot said. + +"She shan't go away unless I go with her. And I can't."' + +"Well, then, it's an impossible situation." + +"It's a damnable situation, but it's the only decent one. You forget +there's Maisie." + +"No, I don't. Maisie doesn't know?" + +"Oh Lord, no. And she never will." + +"You ought to tell her." + +Jerrold was silent. + +"My dear Jerrold, it's the only sensible thing. Tell her straight and +get her to divorce you." + +"I was going to. Then she got ill and I couldn't." + +"She isn't ill now." + +"She will be if I tell her. It'll simply kill her." + +"It won't. It may--even--cure her." + +"It'll make her frightfully unhappy. And it'll bring back that infernal +pain. If you'd seen her, Eliot, you'd know how impossible it is. We +simply can't be swine. And if I could, Anne couldn't.... No. We've got +to stick it somehow, Anne and I." + +"It's all wrong, Jerrold." + +"I know it's all wrong. But it's the best we can do. You don't suppose +Anne would be happy if we did Maisie down." + +"No. No. She wouldn't. You're right there. But it's a damnable +business." + +"Oh, damnable, yes." + +Jerrold laughed in his agony. Yet he saw, as if he had never seen it +before, Eliot's goodness and the sadness and beauty of his love for +Anne. He had borne for years what Jerrold was bearing now, and Anne had +not loved him. He had never known for one moment the bliss of love or +any joy. He had had nothing. And Jerrold remembered with a pang of +contrition that he had never cared enough for Eliot. It had always been +Colin, the young, breakable Colin, who had clung to him and followed +him. Eliot had always gone his own queer way, keeping himself apart. + +And now Eliot was nearer to him than anything in the world, except Anne. + +"I'm sorry, Jerrold." + +"You're pretty decent, Eliot, to be sorry--I believe you honestly want +me to have Anne." + +"I wouldn't go so far as that, old man. But I believe I honestly want +Anne to have you.... I say, she hasn't gone yet, has she?" + +"No. Maisie's keeping her for dinner in your honour. You'll probably +find her in the drawing-room now." + +"Where's Maisie?" + +"She won't worry you. She's gone to lie down." + +Eliot went into the drawing-room and found Anne there. + +She looked at him. "You've been talking to Jerrold," she said. + +"Yes, Anne. I'm worried about him." + +"So am I." + +"And I'm worried about you." + +"And he's worried about Maisie." + +"Yes. I suppose he began by not seeing she was ill, and now he does see +it he thinks she's going to die. I've been trying to explain to him that +she isn't." + +"Can you explain why she's got into this state? It's not as if she +wasn't happy. She _is_ happy." + +"She wasn't always happy. Jerrold must have made her suffer damnably." + +"When?" + +"Oh, long before he married her." + +"But _how_ did he make her suffer?" + +"Oh, by just not marrying her. She found out he didn't care for her. Her +people took her out to India, I believe, with the idea that he would +marry her. And when they saw that Jerry wasn't on in that act they sent +her back again. Poor Maisie got it well rammed into her then that he +didn't care for her, and the idea's stuck. It's left a sort of wound in +her memory." + +"But she must have thought he cared for her when he did marry her. She +thinks he cares now." + +"Of course she thinks it. I don't suppose he's ever let her see." + +"I know he hasn't." + +"But the wound's there, all the same. She's never got over it, though +she isn't conscious of it now. The fact remains that Maisie's marriage +is incomplete because Jerry doesn't care for her. Part of Maisie, the +adorable part we know, isn't aware of any incompleteness; it lives in a +perpetual illusion. But the part we don't know, the hidden, secret part +of her, is aware of nothing else.... Well, her illness is simply +camouflage for that. Maisie's mind couldn't bear the reality, so it +escaped into a neurosis. Maisie's behaving as though she wasn't married, +so that her mind can say to itself that her marriage is incomplete +because she's ill, not because Jerry doesn't care for her. It's +substituted a bearable situation for an unbearable one." + +"Then, you don't think she _knows_?" + +"That Jerrold doesn't care for her? No. Only in that unconscious way. +Her mind remembers and _she_ doesn't." + +"I mean, she doesn't know about Jerrold and me?" + +"I'm sure she doesn't. If she did she'd do something." + +"That's what Jerrold said. What would she do?" + +"Oh something beautiful, or it wouldn't be Maisie. She'd let Jerrold +go." + +"Yes. She'd let him go. And she'd die of it." + +"Oh no, she wouldn't. I told Jerrold just now it might cure her." + +"How _could_ it cure her?" + +"By making her face reality. By making her see that her illness simply +means that she hasn't faced it. All our neuroses come because we daren't +live with the truth." + +"It's no good making Maisie well if we make her unhappy. Besides, I +don't believe it. If Maisie's unhappy she'll be worse, not better." + +"There _is_ just that risk," he said. "But it's you I'm thinking about, +not Maisie. You see, I don't know what's happened." + +"Jerrold didn't tell you?" + +"He only told me what I know already." + +"After all, what _do_ you know?" + +"I know you were all right, you and he, when I saw you together here in +the spring. So I suppose you were happy then. Jerrold looked wretchedly +ill all the time he was at Taormina. So I suppose he was unhappy then +because he was away from you. He looks wretchedly ill now. So do you. So +I suppose you're both unhappy." + +"Yes, we're both unhappy." + +"Do you want to tell me about it, Anne?" + +"No. I don't want to tell you about it. Only, if I thought you still +wanted to marry me----" + +"I do want to marry you. I shall always want to marry you. I told you +long ago nothing would ever make any difference. + +"Even if----?" + +"Even if--Whatever you did or didn't do I'd still want you. But I told +you--don't you remember?--that you could never do anything dishonourable +or cruel." + +"And I told you I wasn't sure." + +"And I am sure. That's enough for me. I don't want to know anything +more. I don't want to know anything you'd rather I didn't know." + +"Oh, Eliot, you _are_ so good. You're good like Maisie. Don't worry +about Jerry and me. We'll see it through somehow." + +"And if you can't stand the strain of it?" + +"But I can." + +"And if _he_ can't? If you want to be safe----" + +"I told you I should never want to be safe." + +"If you want _him_ to be safe, then, would you marry me?" + +"That's different. I don't know, Eliot, but I don't think so." + +He went away with a faint hope. She had said it would be different; what +she would never do for him she might do for Jerrold. + +She might, after all, marry him to keep Jerrold safe. + +Nothing made any difference. Whatever Anne did she would still be Anne. +And it was Anne he loved. And, after all, what did he know about her and +Jerrold? Only that if they had been lovers that would account for their +strange happiness seven months ago; if they had given each other up this +would account for their unhappiness now. He thought: How they must have +struggled. + +Perhaps, some day, when the whole story was told and Anne was tired of +struggling, she would come to him and he would marry her. + +Even if---- + + + +XVIII + + +JERROLD AND ANNE + +i + +The Barrow Farm house, long, low and grey, stood back behind the tall +elms and turned its blank north gable end to the road and the Manor +Farm. Its nine mullioned windows looked down the field to the river. And +the great barns were piled behind it, long roof-trees, steep, +mouse-coloured slopes and peaks above grey walls. + +Anne didn't move into the Barrow Farm house all at once. She had to wait +while Jerrold had the place made beautiful for her. + +This was the only thing that roused him to any interest. Through all his +misery he could still find pleasure in the work of throwing small rooms +into one to make more space for Anne, and putting windows into the south +gable to give her the sun. + +Anne's garden absorbed him more than his own seven hundred acres. Maisie +and he planned it together, walking round the rank flower-beds, and bald +wastes scratched up by the hens. + +There was to be a flagged court on one side and a grass plot on the +other, with a flower garden between. Here, Maisie said, there should be +great clumps of larkspurs and there a lavender hedge. They said how nice +it would be for Anne to watch the garden grow. + +"He's going to make it so beautiful that you'll want to stay in it +forever," she said. + +And Anne went with them and listened to them, and told them they were +angels, and pretended to be excited about her house and garden, while +all the time her heart ached and she was too tired to care. + +The house was finished by the end of November and Jerrold and Maisie +helped her to furnish it. Maisie sent to London for patterns and brought +them to Anne to choose. Maisie thought perhaps the chintz with the cream +and pink roses, or the one with the green leaves and red tulips and blue +and purple clematis was the prettiest. Anne tried to behave as if all +her happiness depended on a pattern, and ended by choosing the one that +Maisie liked best. And the furniture went where Maisie thought it should +go, because Anne was too tired to care. Besides, she was busy on her +farm. Old Sutton in his decadence had let most of his arable land run to +waste, and Anne's job was to make good soil again out of bad. + +Maisie was pleased like a child and excited with her planning. Her idea +was that Anne should come in from her work on the land and find the +house all ready for her, everything in its place, chairs and sofas +dressed in their gay suits of chintz, the books on their shelves, the +blue-and-white china in rows on the oak dresser. + +Tea was set out on the gate-legged table before the wide hearth-place. +The lamps were lit. A big fire burned. Colin and Jerrold and Maisie were +there waiting for her. And Anne came in out of the fields, tired and +white and thin, her black hair drooping. Her rough land dress hung slack +on her slender body. + +Jerrold looked at her. Anne's tired face, trying to smile, wrung his +heart. So did the happiness in Maisie's eyes. And Anne's voice trying to +sound as if she were happy. + +"You darlings! How nice you've made it." + +"Do you like it?" + +Maisie was breathless with joy. + +"I love it. I adore it! But--aren't there lots of things that weren't +here before? Where did that table come from?" + +"From the Manor Farm. Don't you remember it? That's Eliot." + +"And the bureau, and the dresser, and those heavenly rugs?" + +"That's Jerrold." + +And the china was Colin, and the chintz was Maisie. The long couch for +Anne to lie down on was Maisie. Everything that was not Anne's they had +given her. + +"You shouldn't have done it," she said. + +"We did it for ourselves. To keep you with us," said Maisie. + +"Did you think it would take all that?" + +She wondered whether they saw how hard she was trying to look happy, not +to be too tired to care. + +Then Maisie took her upstairs to show her her bedroom and the white +bathroom. Colin carried the lamp. He left them together in Anne's room. +Maisie turned to her there. + +"Darling, how tired you look. Are you too tired to be happy?" + +"I'd be a brute if I weren't happy," Anne said. + +But she wasn't happy. The minute they were gone her sadness came upon +her, crushing her down. She could hear Colin and Maisie, the two +innocent ones, laughing out into the darkness. She saw again Jerrold's +hard, unhappy face trying to smile; his mouth jerking in the tight, +difficult smile that was like an agony. And it used to be Jerrold who +was always happy, who went laughing. + +She turned up and down the beautiful lighted room; she looked again and +again at the things they had given her, Colin and Jerrold and Maisie. + +Maisie. She would have to live with the cruelty of Maisie's gifts, with +Maisie's wounding kindness and her innocence. Maisie's curtains, +Maisie's couch, covered with flowers that smiled at her, gay on the +white ground. She thought of the other house, of the curtains that had +shut out the light from her and Jerrold, of the couch where she had lain +in his arms. Each object had a dumb but poignant life that reminded and +reproached her. + +This was the scene where her life was to be cast. Henceforth these +things would know her in her desolation. Jerrold would never come to her +here as he had come to the Manor Farm house; they would never sit +together talking by this fireside; those curtains would never be drawn +on their passion; he would never go up to that lamp and put it out; she +would never lie here waiting, thrilling, as he came to her through the +darkness. + +She had wanted the Barrow Farm and she had got what she had wanted, and +she had got it too late. She loved it. Yet how was it possible to love +the place that she was to be so unhappy in? She ought to hate it with +its enclosing walls, its bright-eyed, watching furniture, its air of +quiet complicity in her pain. + +She drew back the curtains. The lamp and its yellow flame hung out there +on the darkness of the fields. The fields dropped away through the +darkness to the river, and there were the black masses of the trees. + +There the earth waited for her. Out there was the only life left for her +to live. The life of struggling with the earth, forcing the earth to +yield to her more than it had yielded to the men who had tilled it +before her, making the bad land good. Ploughing time would come and seed +time, and hay harvest and corn harvest. Feeding time and milking time +would come. She would go on seeing the same things done at the same +hour, at the same season, day after day and year after year. There would +have been joy in that if it had been Jerrold's land, if she could have +gone on working for Jerrold and with Jerrold. And if she had not been so +tired. + +She was only twenty-nine and Jerrold was only thirty-two. She wondered +how many more ploughing times they would have to go through, how many +seed times and harvests. And how would they go through them? Would they +go on getting more and more tired, or would something happen? + +No. Nothing would happen. Nothing that they could bear to think of. They +would just go on. + +In the stillness of the house she could feel her heart beating, +measuring out time, measuring out her pain. + + +ii + +That winter Adeline and John Severn came down to Wyck Manor for +Christmas and the New Year. + +Adeline was sitting in the drawing-room with Maisie in the heavy hour +before tea time. All afternoon she had been trying to talk to Maisie, +and she was now bored. Jerrold's wife had always bored her. She couldn't +imagine why Jerrold had married her when it was so clear that he was not +in love with her. + +"It's funny," she said at last, "staying in your own house when it isn't +your own any more." + +Maisie hoped that Adeline would treat the house as if it were her own. + +"I probably shall. Don't be surprised if you hear me giving orders to +the servants. I really cannot consider that Wilkins belongs to anybody +but me." + +Maisie hoped that Adeline wouldn't consider that he didn't. + +And there was a pause. Adeline looked at the clock and saw that there +was still another half-hour till tea time. How could they possibly fill +it in? Then, suddenly, from a thought of Jerrold so incredibly married +to Maisie, Adeline's mind wandered to Anne. + +"Is Anne dining here tonight?" she said. + +And Maisie said yes, she thought Adeline and Mr. Severn would like to +see as much as possible of Anne. And Adeline said that was very kind of +Maisie, and was bored again. + +She saw nothing before her but more and more boredom; and the subject of +Anne alone held out the prospect of relief. She flew to it as she would +have fled from any danger. + +"By the way, Maisie, if I were you I wouldn't let Anne see too much of +Jerrold." + +"Why not?" + +"Because, my dear, it isn't good for her." + +"I should have thought," Maisie said, "it was very good for both of +them, as they like each other. I should never dream of interfering with +their friendship. That's the way people get themselves thoroughly +disliked. I don't want Jerry to dislike me, or Anne, either. I like them +to feel that if he _is_ married they can go on being friends just the +same." + +"Oh, of course, if you like it----" + +"I do like it," said Maisie, firmly. + +Firm opposition was a thing that Adeline's wilfulness could never stand. +It always made her either change the subject or revert to her original +statement. This time she reverted. + +"My point was that it isn't fair to Anne." + +"Why isn't it?" + +"Because she's in love with him." + +"That," said Maisie, with increasing decision, "I do _not_ believe. I've +never seen any signs of it." + +"You're the only person who hasn't then. It sticks out of her. If it was +a secret I shouldn't have told you." + +"It is a secret to me," said Maisie, "so I think you might let it +alone." + +"You ought to know it if nobody else does. We've all of us known about +Anne for ages. She was always quite mad about Jerrold. It was funny when +she was a little thing; but it's rather more serious now she's thirty." + +"She isn't thirty," said Maisie, contradictiously. + +"Almost thirty. It's a dangerous age, Maisie. And Anne's a dangerous +person. She's absolutely reckless. She always was." + +"I thought you thought she was in love with Colin." + +"I never thought it." + +Maisie hated people who lied to her. + +"Why did you tell Jerrold they were lovers, then?" she said. + +"Did I tell Jerrold they were lovers?" + +"He thinks you did." + +"He must have misunderstood what I said. Colin gave me his word of +honour that there was nothing between them." + +But Maisie had no mercy. + +"Why should he do that if you didn't think there was? If you were +mistaken then you may be mistaken now." + +"I'm not mistaken now. Ask Colin, ask Eliot, ask Anne's father." + +"I shouldn't dream of asking them. You forget, if Jerrold's my husband, +Anne's my friend." + +"Then for goodness sake keep her out of mischief. Keep her out of +Jerrold's way. Anne's a darling and I'm devoted to her, but she always +did love playing with fire. If she's bent on burning her pretty wings it +isn't kind to bring her where the lamp is." + +"I'd trust Anne's wings to keep her out of danger." + +"How about Jerrold's danger? You might think of him." + +"I do think of him. And I trust him. Absolutely." + +"I don't. I don't trust anybody absolutely." + +"One thing's clear," said Maisie, "that it's time we had tea." + +She got up, with an annihilating dignity, and rang the bell. Adeline's +smile intimated that she was unbeaten and unconvinced. + +That evening John Severn came into his wife's room as she was dressing +for dinner. + +"I wish to goodness Anne hadn't this craze for farming," he said. "She's +simply working herself to death. I never saw her look so seedy. I'm +sorry Jerrold let her have that farm." + +"So am I," said Adeline. "I never saw Jerry look so seedy, either. +Maisie's been behaving like a perfect idiot. If she wanted them to go +off together she couldn't have done better." + +"You don't imagine," John said, "that's what they're after?" + +"How do I know what they're after? You never can tell with people like +Jerrold and Anne. They're both utterly reckless. They don't care who +suffers so long as they get what they want. If Anne had the morals of +a--of a mouse, she'd clear out." + +"I think," John said, "you're mistaken. Anne isn't like that.... I hope +you haven't said anything to Maisie?" + +Adeline made a face at him, as much as to say, "What do you take me +for?" She lifted up her charming, wilful face and powdered it carefully. + + +iii + +The earth smelt of the coming rain. All night the trees had whispered of +rain coming to-morrow. Now they waited. + +At noon the wind dropped. Thick clouds, the colour of dirty sheep's +wool, packed tight by their own movement, roofed the sky and walled it +round, hanging close to the horizon. A slight heaving and swelling in +the grey mass packed it tighter. It was pregnant with rain. Here and +there a steaming vapour broke from it as if puffed out by some immense +interior commotion. Thin tissues detached themselves and hung like a +frayed hem, lengthening, streaming to the hilltops in the west. + +Anne was going up the fields towards the Manor and Jerrold was coming +down towards the Manor Farm. They met at the plantation as the first big +drops fell. + +He called out to her, "I say, you oughtn't to be out a day like this." + +Anne had been ill all January with a slight touch of pleurisy after a +cold that she had taken no care of. + +"I'm going to see Maisie." + +"You're _not_," he said. "It's going to rain like fury." + +"Maisie knows I don't mind rain," Anne said, and laughed. + +"Maisie'd have a fit if she knew you were out in it. Look, how it's +coming down over there." + +Westwards and northwards the round roof and walls of cloud were shaken +and the black rain hung sheeted between sky and earth. Overhead the dark +tissues thinned out and lengthened. The fir trees quivered; they gave +out slight creaking, crackling noises as the rain came down. It poured +off each of the sloping fir branches like a jet from a tap. + +"We must make a dash for it," Jerrold said. And they ran together, +laughing, down the field to Anne's shelter at the bottom. He pushed back +the sliding door. + +The rain drummed on the roof and went hissing along the soaked ground; +it sprayed out as the grass bent and parted under it; every hollow tuft +was a water spout. The fields were dim behind the shining, glassy bead +curtain of the rain. + +The wind rose again and shook the rain curtain and blew it into the +shelter. Rain scudded across the floor, wetting them where they stood. +Jerrold slid the door to. They were safe now from the downpour. + +Anne's bed stood in the corner tucked up in its grey blankets. They sat +down on it side by side. + +For a moment they were silent, held by their memory. They were shut in +there with their past. It came up to them, close and living, out of the +bright, alien mystery of the rain. + +He put his hand on the shoulder of Anne's coat to feel if it was wet. At +his touch she trembled. + +"It hasn't gone through, has it?" + +"No," she said and coughed again. + +"Anne, I hate that cough of yours. You never had a cough before." + +"I've never had pleurisy before." + +"You wouldn't have had it if you hadn't been frightfully run down." + +"It's all over now," she said. + +"It isn't. You may get it again. I don't feel as if you were safe for +one minute. Are you warm?" + +"Quite." + +"Are your feet wet?" + +"No. No. No. Don't worry, Jerry dear; I'm all right." + +"I wouldn't worry if I was with you all the time. It's not seeing you. +Not knowing." + +"Don't," she said. "I can't bear it." + +And they were silent again. + +Their silence was more real to them than the sounding storm. There was +danger in it. It drew them back and back. It was poignant and +reminiscent. It came to them like the long stillness before their +passion. They had waited here before, like this, through moments tense +and increasing, for the supreme, toppling instant of their joy. + +Their minds went round and round, looking for words to break the silence +and finding none. They were held there by their danger. + +At last Anne spoke. + +"Do you think it's over?" + +"No. It's only just begun." + +The rain hurled itself against the window, as if it would pluck them out +into the storm. It brimmed over from the roof like water poured out from +a bucket. + +"We'll have to sit tight till it stops," he said. + +Silence again, long, inveterate, dangerous. Every now and then Anne +coughed, the short, hard cough that hurt and frightened him. He knew he +ought to leave her; every minute increased their danger. But he couldn't +go. He felt that, after all they might have done and hadn't done, heaven +had some scheme of compensation in which it owed them this moment. + +She turned from him coughing, and that sign of her weakness, the sight +of her thin shoulders shaking filled him with pity that was passion +itself. He thought of the injustice life had heaped on Anne's innocence; +of the cruelty that had tracked her and hunted her down; of his own +complicity with her suffering. He thought of his pity for Maisie as +treachery to Anne, of his honour as cowardice. Instead of piling up wall +after wall, he ought never to have let anything come between him and +Anne. Not even Maisie. Not even his honour. His honour belonged to Anne +far more than to Maisie. The rest had been his own blundering folly, and +he had no right to let Anne be punished for it. + +An hour ago the walls had stood solid between them. Now a furious +impulse seized him to tear them down and get through to her. This time +he would hold her and never let her go. + +His thoughts went the way his passion went. Then suddenly she turned and +they looked at each other and he thought no more. All his thoughts went +down in the hot rushing darkness of his blood. + +"Anne," he said, "Anne"--His voice sounded like a cry. + +They stood up suddenly and were swept together; he held her tight, shut +in his arms, his body straining to her. They clung to each other as if +only by clinging they could stand against the hot darkness that drowned +them; and the more they clung the more it came over them, wave after +wave. + +Then in the darkness he heard her crying to him to let her go. + +"Don't make me, Jerrold, don't make me." + +"Yes. Yes." + +"No. Oh, why did we ever come here?" + +He pressed her closer and she tried to push him off with weak hands that +had once been strong. He felt her breakable in his arms, and utterly +defenceless. + +"I can't," she cried. "I should feel as if Maisie were there and looking +at us.... Don't make me." + +Suddenly he let her go. + +He was beaten by the sheer weakness of her struggle. He couldn't fight +for his flesh, like a brute, against that helplessness. + +"If I go, you'll stay here till the rain stops?" + +"Yes. I'm sorry, Jerry. You'll get so wet." + +That made him laugh. And, laughing, he left her. Then tears came, +cutting through his eyelids like blood from a dry wound. They mixed with +the rain and blinded him. + +And Anne sat on the little grey bed in her shelter and stared out at the +rain and cried. + + + +XIX + + +ANNE AND ELIOT + +i + +She knew what she would do now. + +She would go away and never see Jerrold again, never while their youth +lasted, while they could still feel. She would go out of England, so far +away that they couldn't meet. She would go to Canada and farm. + +All night she lay awake with her mind fixed on the one thought of going +away. There was nothing else to be done, no room for worry or +hesitation. They couldn't hold out any longer, she and Jerrold, strained +to the breaking-point, tortured with the sight of each other. + +As she lay awake there came to her the peace that comes with all immense +and clear decisions. Her mind would never be torn and divided any more. +And towards morning she fell asleep. + +She woke dulled and bewildered. Her mind struggled with a sense of +appalling yet undefined disaster. Something had happened overnight, she +couldn't remember what. Something had happened. No. Something was going +to happen. She tried to fall back into sleep, fighting against the +return of consciousness; it came on, wave after wave, beating her down. + +Now she remembered. She was going away. She would never see Jerrold +again. She was going to Canada. + +The sharp, clear name made the whole thing real and irrevocable. It was +something that would actually happen soon. To her. She was going. And +when she had gone she would not come back. + +She got up and looked out of the window. She saw the green field sloping +down to the river and the road, and beyond the road, to the right, the +rise of the Manor fields and the belt of firs. And in her mind, more +real than they, the Manor house, the garden, and the many-coloured hills +beyond, rolling, curve after curve, to the straight, dark-blue horizon. +The scene that held her childhood, all her youth, all her happiness; +that had drawn her back, again and again, in memory and in dreams, +making her heart ache. How could she leave it? How could she live with +that pain? + +If she was going to be a coward, if she was going to be afraid of +pain--How was she to escape it, how was Jerrold to escape? If she stayed +on they would break down together and give in; they would be lovers +again, and again Maisie's sweet, wounding face would come between them; +they could never get away from it; and in the end their remorse would be +as unbearable as their separation. She couldn't drag Jerrold through +that agony again. + +No. Life wasn't worth living if you were a coward and afraid. And under +all her misery Anne had still the sense that life was somehow worth +living even if it made you miserable. Life was either your friend or +your enemy. If it was your friend you served it; if it was your enemy +you stood up to it and refused to let it beat you, and your enemy became +your servant. Whatever happened, your work remained. Still there would +be ploughing and sowing, and reaping and ploughing again. Still the +earth waited. She thought of the unknown Canadian earth that waited for +her tilling. + +Jerrold was not a coward. He was not afraid--well, only afraid of the +people he loved getting ill and dying; and she was not going to get ill +and die. + +She would have to tell him. She would go to him in the fields and tell +him. + +But before she did that she must make the thing irrevocable. So Anne +wrote to the steamship company, booking her passage in two weeks' time; +she wrote to Eliot, asking him to call at the company's office and see +if he could get her a decent cabin. She went to Wyck and posted her +letters, and then to the Far Acres field where Jerrold was watching the +ploughing. + +They met at the "headland." They would be safe there on the ploughed +land, in the open air. + +"What is it, Anne?" he said. + +"Nothing. I want to talk to you." + +"All right." + +Her set face, her hard voice gave him a premonition of disaster. + +"It's simply this," she said. "What happened yesterday mustn't happen +again." + +"It shan't. I swear it shan't. I was a beast. I lost my head." + +"Yes, but it may happen again. We can't go on like this, Jerry. The +strain's too awful." + +"You mean you can't trust me." + +"I can't trust myself. And it isn't fair to you." + +"Oh, me. That doesn't matter." + +"Well, then, say _I_ matter. It's the same for me. I'm never going to +let that happen again. I'm going away." + +"Going away--" + +"Yes. And I'm not coming back this time." + +His voice struggled in his throat. Something choked him. He couldn't +speak. + +"I'm going to Canada in a fortnight." + +"Good God! You can't go to Canada." + +"I can. I've booked my passage." + +His face was suddenly sallow white, ghastly. His heart heaved and he +felt sick. + +"Nothing on earth will stop me." + +"Won't Maisie stop you? If you do this she'll know. Can't you see how it +gives us away?" + +"No. It'll only give _me_ away. If Maisie asks me why I'm going I shall +tell her I'm in love with you, and that I can't stand it; that I'm too +unhappy. I'd rather she thought I cared for you than that she should +think you cared for me." + +"She'll think it all the same." + +"Then I shall have to lie. I must risk it.... Oh Jerry, don't look so +awful! I've got to go. We've settled it that we can't go on deceiving +her, and we aren't going to make her unhappy. There's nothing else to be +done." + +"Except to bear it." + +"And how long do you suppose that'll last? We _can't_ bear it. Look at +it straight. It's all so horribly simple. If we were beasts and only +thought of ourselves and didn't think of Maisie it wouldn't matter to us +what we did. But we can't be beasts. We can't lie to Maisie, and we +can't tell her the truth. We can't go on seeing each other without +wanting each other--unbearably--and we can't go on wanting each other +without--some day--giving in. It comes back the first minute we're +alone. And we don't mean to give in. So we mustn't see each other, +that's all. Can you tell me one other thing I can do?" + +"But why should it be _you_? Why should you get the worst of it?" + +"Because one of us has got to clear out. It can't be you, so it's got to +be me. And going away isn't the worst of it. It'll be worse for you +sticking on here where everything reminds you--At least I shall have new +things to keep my mind off it." + +"Nothing will keep your mind off it. You'll fret yourself to death." + +"No, I shan't. I shall have too much to do. You're _not_ to be sorry for +me, Jerrold." + +"But you're giving up everything. The Barrow Farm. The place you wanted. +You won't have a thing." + +"I don't want 'things.' It's easier to chuck them than to hang on to them +when they'll remind me.... Really, if I could see any other way I'd take +it." + +"But you can't go. You're not fit to go. You're ill." + +"I shall be all right when I get there." + +"But what do you think you're going to _do_ in Canada? It's not as if +you'd got anything to go for." + +"I shall find something. I shall work on somebody's ranch first and +learn Canadian farming. Then I shall look out for land and buy it. I've +got stacks of money. All Grandpapa Everitt's, and the money for the +farm. Stacks. I shall get on all right." + +"When did you think of all this?" + +"Last night." + +"I see. I made you." + +"No. I made myself. After all, it's the easiest way." + +"For you, or me?" + +"For both of us. Honestly, it's the only straight thing. I ought to have +done it long ago." + +"It means never seeing each other again. You'll never come back." + +"Never while we're young. When we're both old, too old to feel any more, +then I'll come back some day, and we'll be friends." + +And still his will beat against hers in vain, till at last he stopped; +sick and exhausted. + +They went together down the ploughed land into the pastures, and through +the pastures to the mill water. In the opposite field they could see the +brown roof and walls of the shelter. + +"What are you going to plant in the Seven Acres field?" + +"Barley," he said. + +"You can't. It was barley last year." + +"Was it?" + +They were silent then. Jerrold struggled with his feeling of deadly +sickness. Anne couldn't trust herself to speak. At the Barrow Farm gate +they parted. + +ii + +Maisie's eyes looked at him across the table, wondering. Her little +drooping mouth was half open with anxiety, as if any minute she was +going to say something. The looking-glass had shown him his haggard and +discoloured face, a face to frighten her. He tried to eat, but the sight +and smell of hot roast mutton sickened him. + +"Oh, Jerrold, can't you eat it?" + +"No, I can't. I'm sorry." + +"There's some cold chicken. Will you have that?" + +"No, thanks." + +"Try and eat something." + +"I can't. I feel sick." + +"Don't sit up, then. Go and lie down." + +"I will if you don't mind." + +He went to his room and was sick. He lay down on his bed and tried to +sleep. His head ached violently and every movement made him heave; he +couldn't sleep; he couldn't lie still; and presently he got up and went +out again, up to the Far Acres field to the ploughing. He couldn't +overcome the physical sickness of his misery, but he could force himself +to move, to tramp up and down the stiff furrows, watching the tractor; +he kept himself going by the sheer strength of his will. The rattle and +clank of the tractor ground into his head, making it ache again. He was +stunned with great blows of noise and pain, so that he couldn't think. +He didn't want to think; he was glad of the abominable sensations that +stopped him. He went from field to field, avoiding the boundaries of the +Barrow Farm lest he should see Anne. + +When the sun set and the land darkened he went home. + +At dinner he tried to eat, sickened again, and leaned back in his chair; +he forced himself to sit through the meal, talking to Maisie. When it +was over he went to bed and lay awake till the morning. + +The next day passed in the same way, and the next night; and always he +was aware of Maisie's sweet face watching him with frightened eyes and +an unuttered question. He was afraid to tell her that Anne was going +lest she should put down his illness to its true cause. + +And on the third day, when he heard her say she was going to see Anne, +he told her. + +"Oh, Jerrold, she can't really mean it." + +"She does mean it. I said everything I could to stop her, but it wasn't +any good. She's taken her passage." + +"But why--_why_ should she want to go?" + +"I can't tell you why. You'd better ask her." + +"Has anything happened to upset her?" + +"What on earth should happen?" + +"Oh, I don't know. When did she tell you this?" + +He hesitated. It was dangerous to lie when Maisie might get the truth +from Anne. + +"The day before yesterday." + +Maisie's eyes were fixed on him, considering it. He knew she was saying +to herself, "That was the day you came home so sick and queer." + +"Jerry--did you say anything to upset her?" + +"No." + +"I can't think how she could want to go." + +"Nor I. But she's going." + +"I shall go down and see if I can't make her stay." + +"Do. But you won't if I can't," he said. + + +iii + +Maisie went down early in the afternoon to see Anne. + +She couldn't think how Anne could want to leave the Barrow Farm house +when she had just got into it, when they had all made it so nice for +her; she couldn't think how she could leave them when she cared for +them, when she knew how they cared for her. + +"You _do_ care for us, Anne?" + +"Oh yes, I care." + +"And you _wanted_ the farm. I can't understand your going just when +you've got it, when you've settled, in and when Jerrold took all that +trouble to make it nice for you. It isn't like you, Anne." + +"I know. It must seem awful of me; but I can't help it, Maisie darling. +I've _got_ to go. You mustn't try and stop me. It only makes it harder." + +"Then it _is_ hard? You don't really want to go?" + +"Of course I don't. But I must." + +Maisie meditated, trying to make it out. + +"Is it--is it because you're unhappy?" + +Anne didn't answer. + +"You _are_ unhappy. You've been unhappy ever so long. Can't we do +anything?" + +"No. Nobody can do anything." + +"It isn't," said Maisie at last, "anything to do with Jerrold?" + +"You wouldn't ask me that, Maisie, if you didn't know it was." + +"Perhaps I do know. Do you care for him very much, Anne?" + +"Yes, I care for him, very much. And I can't stand it." + +"It's so bad that you've got to go away?" + +"It's so bad that I've got to go away." + +"That's very brave of you." + +"Or very cowardly." + +"No. You couldn't be a coward.... Oh, Anne darling, I'm so sorry." + +"Don't be sorry. It's my own fault. I'd no business to get into this +state. Don't let's talk about it, Maisie." + +"All right, I won't. But I'm sorry.... Only one thing. It--it hasn't +made you hate me, has it?" + +"You know it hasn't." + +"Oh, Anne, you _are_ beautiful." + +"I'm anything but, if you only knew." + +She had got beyond the pain of Maisie's goodness, Maisie's trust. No +possible blow from Maisie's mind could hurt her now. Nothing mattered. +Maisie's trust and goodness didn't matter, since she had done all she +knew; since she was going away; since she would never see Jerrold again, +never till their youth was gone and they had ceased to feel. + + +iv + +That afternoon Eliot arrived at Wyck Manor. His coming was his answer to +Anne's letter. + +He went over to the Barrow Farm about five o'clock when Anne's work +would be done. Anne was still out, and he waited till she should come +back. + +As he waited he looked round her room. This, he thought, was the place +that Anne had set her heart on having for her own; it was the home they +had made for her. Something terrible must have happened before she could +bring herself to leave it. She must have been driven to the +breaking-point. She was broken. Jerrold must have driven and broken her. + +He heard her feet on the flagged path, on the threshold of the house; +she stood in the doorway of the room, looking at him, startled. + +"Eliot, what are you doing there?" + +"Waiting for you. You must have known I'd come." + +"To say good-bye? That was nice of you." + +"No, not to say good-bye. I should come to see you off if you were +going." + +"But I am going. You've seen about my berth, haven't you?" + +"No, I haven't. We've got to talk about it first." + +He looked dead tired. She remembered that she was his hostess. + +"Have you had tea?" + +"No. You're going to give me some. Then we'll talk about it." + +"Talking won't be a bit of good." + +"I think it may be," he said. + +She rang the bell and they waited. She gave him his tea, and while they +ate and drank he talked to her about the weather and the land, and about +his work and the book he had just finished on Amoebic Dysentery, and +about Colin and how well he was now. Neither of them spoke of Jerrold or +of Maisie. + +When the tea things were cleared away he leaned back and looked at her +with his kind, deep-set, attentive eyes. She loved Eliot's eyes, and his +queer, clever face that was so like and so unlike his father's, so +utterly unlike Jerrold's. + +"You needn't tell me why you're going," he said at last. "I've seen +Jerrold." + +"Did he tell you?" + +"No. You've only got to look at him to see." + +"Do you think Maisie sees?" + +"I can't tell you. She isn't stupid. She must wonder why you're going +like this." + +"I told her. I told her I was in love with Jerrold." + +"What did she say?" + +"Nothing. Only that she was sorry. I told her so that she mightn't think +he cared for me. She needn't know that." + +"She isn't stupid," he said again. + +"No. But she's good. She trusts him so. She trusted me.... Eliot, that +was the worst of it, the way she trusted us. That broke us down." + +"Of course she trusted you." + +"Did you?" + +"You know I did." + +"And yet," she said, "I believe you knew. You knew all the time." + +"If I didn't, I know now." + +"Everything?" + +"Everything." + +"How? Because of my going away? Is that it?" + +"Not altogether. I've seen you happy and I've seen you unhappy. I've +seen you with Jerrold. I've seen you with Maisie. Nobody else would have +seen it, but I did, because I knew you so well. And because I was afraid +of it. Besides, you almost told me." + +"Yes, and you said it wouldn't make any difference. Does it?" + +"No. None. I know, whatever you did, you wouldn't do it only for +yourself. You did this for Jerrold. And you were unhappy because of it." + +"No. No. I was happy. We were only unhappy afterwards because of Maisie. +It was so awful going on deceiving her, hiding it and lying. I feel as +if everything I said and did then was a lie. That was how I was +punished. Not being able to tell the truth. And I could have borne even +that if it wasn't for Jerrold. But he hated it, too. It made him +wretched." + +"I know it did. If you hadn't been so fine it wouldn't have punished +you." + +"_The_ horrible thing was knowing what I'd done to Jerrold, making him +hide and lie." + +"Oh, what you've done to Jerrold--You've done him nothing but good. +You've made him finer than he could possibly have been without you." + +"I've made him frightfully unhappy." + +"Not unhappier than he's made you. And it's what he had to be. I told +you long ago Jerrold wouldn't be any good till he'd suffered damnably. +Well--he has suffered damnably. And he's got a soul because of it. He +hadn't much of one before he loved you." + +"How do you mean?" + +"I mean he used to think of nothing but his own happiness. Now he's +thinking of nothing but Maisie's and yours. He loves you better than +himself. He even loves Maisie better--I mean he thinks more of her--than +he did before he loved you. There are two people that he cares for more +than himself. He cares more for his own honour than he did. And for +yours. And that's your doing. Just think how you'd have wrecked him if +you'd been a different sort of woman." + +"No. Because then he wouldn't have cared for me." + +"No, I believe he wouldn't. He chose well." + +"You were always much too good to me." + +"No, Anne. I want you to see this thing straight, and to see yourself as +you really are. Not to go back on yourself." + +"I don't go back on myself. That would be going back on Jerrold. I'm +sorry because of Maisie, that's all. If I'd had an ounce of sense I'd +never have known her. I'd have gone off to some place not too far away +where Jerrold could have come to me and where I should never have seen +Maisie. That's what I should have done. We should both have been happy +then." + +"Yes, Jerrold would have been happy. And he wouldn't have saved his +soul. And he'd have been deceiving Maisie all the time. You don't really +wish you'd done that, Anne." + +"No. Not now. And I'm not unhappy about Maisie now. I'm going away. I'm +giving Jerrold up. I can't do more than that." + +"You wouldn't have to go away, Anne, if you'd do what I want and marry +me. You said perhaps you might if you had to save Jerrold." + +"Did I? I don't think I did." + +"You've forgotten and I haven't. You don't know what an appalling thing +you're doing. You're leaving everything and everybody you ever cared +for. You'll die of sheer unhappiness." + +"Nonsense, Eliot. You know perfectly well that people don't die of +unhappiness. They die of accidents and diseases and old age. I shall die +of old age. And I'll be back in twenty years' time if I've seen it +through." + +"Twenty years. The best years of your life. You'll be desperately +lonely. You don't know what it'll be like." + +"Oh yes, I do. I've been lonely before now. And I've saved myself by +working." + +"Yes, in England, where you could see some of us sometimes. But out +there, with people you never saw before--people who may be brutes--" + +"They needn't be." + +He went on relentlessly. "People you don't care for and never will care +for. You've never really cared for anybody but us." + +"I haven't. I'm going because I care. I can't let Jerry go on like that. +I've got to end it." + +"You're going simply to save Jerrold. So that you can never go back to +him. Don't you see that if you married me you'd both be safe? You +couldn't go back. If you were married to me Jerrold wouldn't take you +from me. If you were married to me you wouldn't break faith with me. If +you had children you wouldn't break faith with them. Nothing could keep +you safer." + +"I can't, Eliot. Nothing's changed. I belong to Jerrold. I always have +belonged to him. It isn't anything physical. Even if I'm separated from +him, thousands of miles, I shall belong to him still. My mind, or soul, +or whatever the thing is, can't get away from him.... You say if I +belonged to you I couldn't give myself to Jerrold. If I belong to +Jerrold, how can I give myself to you?" + +"I see. It's like that, is it?" + +"It's like that." + +Eliot said no more. He knew when he was beaten. + + +v + +Maisie sat alone in her own room, thinking it over. She didn't know yet +that Eliot had come. He had arrived while she was with Anne and she had +missed him on the way to Barrow Farm, driving up by the hill road while +he walked down through the fields. + +She didn't think of Jerrold all at once. Her mind was taken up with Anne +and Anne's unhappiness. She could see nothing else. She remembered how +Adeline had told her that Anne was in love with Jerrold. She had said, +"It was funny when she was a little thing." Anne had loved him all her +life, then. All her life she had had to do without him. + +Maisie thought: Perhaps he would have loved her and married her if it +hadn't been for me. And yet Anne had loved her. + +That was Anne's beauty. + +She wondered next: If Anne had been in love with Jerrold all that time, +and if they had all seen it, all the Fieldings and John Severn, how was +it that she had never seen it? She had seen nothing but a perfect +friendship, and she had tried to keep it for them in all its perfection, +so that neither of them should miss anything because Jerrold had married +her. She remembered how happy Anne had been when she first knew her, and +she thought: If she was happy then, why is she unhappy now? If she loved +Jerrold all her life, if she had done without him all her life, why go +away now? + +Unless something had happened. + +It was then that Maisie thought of Jerrold, and his sad, drawn face and +his sudden sickness the other day. That was the day he had been with +Anne, when she had told him that she was going away. He had never been +the same since. He had neither slept nor eaten. + +Maisie had all the pieces of the puzzle loose before her, and at first +sight not one of them looked as if it would fit. But this piece under +her hand fitted. Jerrold's illness joined on to Anne's going. With a +terrible dread in her heart Maisie put the two things together and saw +the third thing. Jerrold was ill because Anne was going away. He +wouldn't be ill unless he cared for her. And another thing. Anne was +going away, not because she cared, but because Jerrold cared. Therefore +she knew that he cared for her. Therefore he had told her. That was what +had happened. + +When she had put all the pieces into their places she would have the +whole story. + +But Maisie didn't want to know any more. She had enough to make her +heart break. She still clung to her belief in their goodness. They were +unhappy because they had given each other up. And under all her +thinking, like a quick-running pain, there went her premonition of its +end. She remembered that they had been happy once when she first knew +them. If they were unhappy now because they had given each other up, had +they been happy then because they hadn't? For a moment she asked +herself, "Were they--?" and was afraid to finish and answer her own +question. It was enough that they were all unhappy now and that none of +them would ever be happy again. Not Anne. Not Jerrold. _Their_ +unhappiness didn't bear thinking of, and in thinking of it Maisie forgot +her own. + +Her heart shook her breast with its beating, and for a moment she +wondered whether her pain were beginning again. Then the thought of Anne +and Jerrold and herself and of their threefold undivided misery came +upon her, annihilating every other thought. As if all that was physical +in Maisie were subdued by the intensity of her suffering, with the +coming of the supreme emotion her body had no pain. + + + +XX + + +MAISIE, JERROLD, AND ANNE + +i + +She got up and dressed for dinner as if nothing had happened, or, +rather, as if everything were about to happen and she were going through +with it magnificently, with no sign that she was beaten. She didn't know +yet what she would do; she didn't see clearly what there was to be done. +She might not have to do anything; and yet again, vaguely, +half-fascinated, half-frightened, she foresaw that she might be called +on to do something, something that was hard and terrible and at the same +time beautiful and supreme. + +And downstairs in the hall, she found Eliot. + +He told her that he had come down to see Anne and that he had done his +best to keep her from going away and that it was all no good. + +"We can't stop her. She's got an unbreakable will." + +"Unbreakable," she said. "And yet she's broken." + +"I know," he said. + +In her nervous exaltation she felt that Eliot had been sent, that Eliot +knew. Eliot was wise. He would help her. + +"Eliot----" she said. "Will you see me in the library after dinner? I +want to ask you something." + +"If it's about Anne, I don't know that there's anything I can say." + +"It's about Jerrold," she said. + +After dinner he came to her in the library. + +"Where's Jerrold?" + +"In the drawing-room with Colin. He won't come in." + +"Eliot, there's something awfully wrong with him. He can't sleep. He +can't eat. He's sick if he tries." + +"He looks pretty ghastly." + +"Do you know what's the matter with him?" + +"How can I know? He doesn't tell me anything." + +"It's ever since he heard that Anne's going." "He's worried about her. +So am I. So are you." + +"He isn't worrying. He's fretting.... Eliot--do you think he cares for +her?" + +Eliot didn't answer her. He looked at her gravely, searchingly, as if he +were measuring her strength before he answered. + +"Don't be afraid to tell me. I'm not a coward." + +"I haven't anything to tell you. It isn't altogether this affair of +Anne's. Jerrold hasn't been fit for a long time." + +"It's been going on for a long time." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"Oh," said Maisie, "everything." + +"Then why don't you ask him?" + +"But--if it is so--would he tell me?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps he wants to tell you, only he's afraid. Anyhow, +if it isn't so he'll tell you and you'll be happy." + +"Somehow I don't think I'm going to be happy." + +"Then," he said, "you're going to be brave." + +She thought: He knows. He's known all the time, only he won't give them +away. + +"Yes," she said, "I'll ask him." + +"Maisie--if it is so what will you do?" + +"Do? There's only one thing I _can_ do." + +She turned to him, and her milk-white face was grey-white, ashen; the +skin had a slack, pitted look, suddenly old. The soft flesh trembled. +But her mouth and eyes were still. In this moment of her agony no base +emotion defaced their sweetness, so that she seemed to him utterly +composed. She had seen what she could do. Something hard and terrible. + +"I can set him free." + + +ii + +That was the end she had seen before her, vaguely, as something not only +hard and terrible, but beautiful and supreme. To leave off clinging to +the illusion of her happiness. To let go. And with that letting go she +was aware that an obscure horror had been hanging over her for three +days and three nights and was now gone. She stood free of herself, in a +great light and peace, so that presently when Jerrold came to her she +met him with an incomparable tranquillity. + +"Jerrold--" + +The slight throbbing of her voice startled him coming out of her +stillness. + +They stood up, facing each other, in attitudes that had no permanence, +as if what must pass between them now would be sudden and soon over. + +"Do you care for Anne?" + +The words dropped clear through her stillness, vibrating. His eyes went +from her, evading the issue. Her voice came with a sharper stress. + +"I _must_ know. _Do_ you care for her?" + +"Yes." + +"And that's why she's going?" + +"Yes. That's why she's going. Did Eliot say anything?" + +"No. He only told me to ask you. He said you'd tell me the truth." + +"I have told you the truth. I'm sorry, Maisie." + +"I know you're sorry. So am I." + +"But, you see, it isn't as if I'd begun after I married you. I've cared +for her all my life." + +"Then why didn't you marry her?" + +"Because, first of all, I didn't know I cared. And afterwards I thought +she cared for Colin." + +"You never asked her?" + +"No. I thought--I thought they were lovers." + +"You thought that of her?" + +"Well, yes. I thought it would be just like her to give everything. I +knew if she cared enough she'd stick at nothing. She wouldn't do it for +herself." + +"That was--when?" + +"The time I came home on leave three years ago." + +"The time you married me. Why did you marry me, if you didn't care for +me?" + +"I would have cared for you if I hadn't cared for her." + +"But, when you cared for her----?" + +"I thought we should find something in it. I wanted you to be happy. +More than anything I wanted you to be happy. I thought I'd be killed in +my next action and that nothing would matter." + +"That you wouldn't have to keep it up?" + +"Oh, I'd have kept it up all right if Anne hadn't been there. I cared +enough for you to want you to be happy. I wanted you to have a child. +You'd have liked that. That would have made you happy." + +"Poor Jerrold----" + +"I'd have been all right if I hadn't seen Anne again." + +"When did you see her again?" + +"Last spring." + +"Only last spring?" + +"Yes, only." + +"When I was away." + +She remembered. She remembered how she had first come to Wyck and found +Jerrold happy and superbly well. + +"But," she said, "you were happy then." + +He sighed, a long, tearing sigh that hurt her. + +"Yes. We were happy then." + +And in a flash of terrific clarity she remembered her home-coming and +the night that followed it and Jerrold's acquiescence in their +separation. + +"Then," she said, "if you were happy----" + +"Do you want to know how far it went?" + +"I want to know everything. I want the truth. I think you owe me the +truth." + +"It went just as far as it could go." + +"Do you mean----" + +He stood silent and she found his words for him. + +"You were Anne's lover?" + +"Yes." + +Her face changed before him, as it had changed an hour ago before Eliot, +ashen-white and slack, quivering, suddenly old. + +Tears came into his eyes, tears of remorse and pity. She saw them and +her heart ached for him. + +"It didn't last long," he said. + +"How long?" + +"From March till--till September." + +"I remember." + +"Maisie--I can't ask you to forgive me. But you must forgive Anne. It +wasn't her fault. I made her do it. And she's been awfully unhappy about +it, because of you." + +"Ah--that was why----" + +"Won't you forgive her?" + +"I forgive you both. I don't know how I should have felt if you'd been +happy. I can't see anything but your unhappiness." + +"We gave it up because of you. That was Anne. She couldn't bear going on +after she knew you, when you were such an angel. It was your goodness +and sweetness broke us down." + +"But if I'd been the most disagreeable person it would have been just as +_wrong_." + +"It wouldn't, for in that case we shouldn't have deceived you. I should +have told you straight and left you." + +"Why didn't you tell me, Jerrold? Why didn't you tell me in the +beginning?" + +"We were afraid. We didn't want to hurt you." + +"As if that mattered." + +"It did matter. We were going to tell you. Then you were ill and we +couldn't. We thought you'd die of it, with your poor little heart in +that state." + +"Oh, my dear, did you suppose I'd hurt you that way?" + +"That was what we couldn't bear. Not being straight about it. That was +why we gave each other up. It never happened again. Anne's going away so +that it mayn't happen.... Maisie--you _do_ believe me?" + +"Yes, I believe you. I believe you did all you knew." + +"We did. But it's my fault that Anne's going. I lost my head, and she +was afraid." + +"If only you'd told me. I shouldn't have been hard on you, Jerry. You +knew that, didn't you?" + +"Yes. I knew." + +"And you went through all that agony rather than hurt me." + +"Yes." + +"The least I can do, then, is to let you go." + +"Would you, Maisie?" + +"Of course. I married you to make you happy. I must make you happy this +way, that's all. But if I do you mustn't think I don't care for you. I +care for you so much that nothing matters but your happiness." + +"Maisie, I'm not fit to live in the same world with you." + +"You mustn't say that. You're fit to live in the same world with Anne. I +suppose I could have made this all ugly and shameful for you. But I want +to keep it beautiful. I want to give you all beautiful to Anne, so that +you'll never go back on it, and never feel ashamed." + +"You made me ashamed every time we thought of you." + +"Don't think of me. Think of each other." + +"Oh--you're adorable." + +"No, I'm doing this because I love you both. But if I didn't love you I +should do it for myself. I should hate myself if I didn't. I can't think +of anything more disgusting and dishonourable than to keep a man tied to +you when he cares for somebody else. I should feel as if I were living +in sin." + +"Maisie--will you be awfully unhappy?" + +"Yes, Jerrold. But not so unhappy as if I'd kept you." + +"We'll go away somewhere where you won't have to see us." + +"No. It's I who'll go away." + +"But I want you to have the Manor and--and everything. Colin'll look +after the estate for me." + +"Do you think I could stay here after you'd gone?... No, Jerry, I can't +do that for you. You can't make it up that way." + +"I wasn't dreaming of making it up. I simply owe you everything, +everlastingly, and there's nothing I can do. I only remembered that you +liked the garden." + +"I couldn't bear it. I should hate the garden. I should hate the whole +place." + +"I've done that to you?" + +"Yes, you've done that to me. It can't be helped." + +"But, what will you _do_, Maisie?" + +"I shall go back to my own people. They happen to care for me." + +That was her one reproach. + +"Do you think _I_ don't?" + +"Oh no. I've done the only thing that would make you care. Perhaps +that's what I did it for." + +He took the hand she gave him and bowed his head over it and kissed it. + + +iii + +Maisie had a long talk with Eliot after Jerrold had left her. + +She was still tranquil and composed, but Jerrold was worried. He was +afraid lest the emotion roused by his confession should bring on her +pain. That night Eliot slept in his father's room, so that he could go +to her if the attack came. + +But it did not come. + +Late in the afternoon Jerrold went down to the Barrow Farm and saw Anne. +He came back with a message from her. Anne wanted to see Maisie, if +Maisie would let her. + +"But she thinks you won't," he said. + +"Why should I?" + +"She's desperately unhappy." + +She turned from him as if she would have left him, and then stayed. + +"You want me to see her?" + +"If you wouldn't hate it too much." + +"I shall hate it. But I'll see her. Go and bring her." + +She dreaded more than anything the sight of Anne. Her new knowledge of +her made Anne strange and terrible. She felt that she would be somehow +different. She would see something in her that she had never seen +before, that she couldn't bear to see. Anne's face would show her that +Jerrold was her lover. + +Yet, if she had never seen that look, if she had never seen anything in +Anne's face that was not beautiful, what did that mean but that Anne's +love for him was beautiful? Before it had touched her body it had lived +a long time in her soul. Either Anne's soul was beautiful because of it, +or it was beautiful because of Anne's soul; and Maisie knew that if she +too was to be beautiful she must keep safe the beauty of their passion +as she had kept safe the beauty of their friendship. It was clear and +hard, unbreakable as crystal. _She_ had been the one flaw in it, the +thing that had damaged its perfection. Now that she had let Jerrold go +it would be perfect. + +Anne stood in the doorway of the library, looking at her and not +speaking. She was the same that she had been yesterday, and before that, +and before that; dressed in the farm clothes that were the queer rough +setting of her charm. The same, except that she was still more broken, +still more beaten, and still more beautiful in her defeat. + +"Anne--" + +Maisie got up and waited, as Anne shut the door and stood there with her +back to it. + +"Maisie--I don't know why I've come. There were things I wanted to say +to you, but I can't say them." + +"You want to say you're sorry you took Jerrold from me." + +"I'm bitterly sorry." + +She came forward with a slender, awkward grace. Her eyes were fixed on +Maisie, thrown open, expecting pain; but she didn't shrink or cower. + +Maisie's voice came with its old sweetness. + +"You didn't take him from me. You couldn't take what I haven't got." + +"I gave him up, Maisie. I couldn't bear it." + +"And I've given him up. _I_ couldn't bear it, either. But," she said, +"it was harder for you. You had him. I'm only giving up what I've never +really had. Don't be too unhappy about it." + +"I shall always be unhappy when I think of you. You've been such an +angel to me. If we could only have told you." + +"Yes. If only you'd told me. That was where you went wrong, Anne." + +"I couldn't tell you. You were so ill. I thought it would kill you." + +"Well, what if it had? You shouldn't have thought of me, you should have +thought of Jerrold." + +"I did think of him. I didn't want him to have agonies of remorse. It's +been bad enough as it is." + +"I know what it's been, Anne." + +"That's what I really came for now. To see if you'd had that pain +again." + +"You needn't be afraid. I shall never have that pain again. Eliot told +me all about it last night." + +"What did he say?" + +"He showed me how it all happened. I was ill because I couldn't face the +truth. The truth was that Jerrold didn't care for me. It seems my mind +knew it all the time when I didn't. I did know it once, and part of me +went on feeling the shock of it, while the other part was living like a +fool in an illusion, thinking he cared. And now I've been dragged out of +it into reality. I'm facing it. _This_ is real. And whatever I may be I +shan't be ill again, not with that illness. I couldn't help it, but in a +way it was as false as if I'd made it up on purpose to hide the truth. +And the truth's cured me." + +"Eliot told me it might. And I wouldn't believe him." + +"You can believe him now. He said you and Jerrold were all right because +you'd faced the truth about yourselves and each other. You held on to +reality." + +"Eliot said that?" + +"Yes. He said it was the test of everybody, how they took reality, and +that Jerrold had had to learn how, but that you had always known. You +were so true that your worst punishment was not being able to tell me +the truth. I was to think of you like that." + +"How can you bear to think of me at all?" + +"How can I bear to live? But I shall live." + +Maisie's voice dropped, note by note, like clear, rounded tears, pressed +out and shaped by pain. + +Anne's voice came thick and quivering out of her dark secret anguish, +like a voice from behind shut doors. + +"Jerrold said you'd forgiven me. Have you?" + +"It would be easier for you if I didn't. But I can't help forgiving you +when you're so unhappy. I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't told +me the truth, if I'd had to find it out that time when you were happy. +Then I'd have hated you." + +"You don't now?" + +"No. I don't want to see you again, or Jerrold, either, for a long time. +But that's because I love you." + +"_Me_?" + +"Yes, you too, Anne." + +"How _can_ you love me?" + +"Because I'm like you, Anne; I'm faithful." + +"I wasn't faithful to you, Maisie." + +"You were to Jerrold." + +Anne still stood there, silent, taking in silence the pain of Maisie's +goodness, Maisie's love. + +Then Maisie ended it. + +"He's waiting for you," she said, "to take you home." + +Anne went to him where he stood by the terrace steps, illuminated by the +light from the windows. In there she could hear Colin playing, a loud, +tempestuous music. Jerrold waited. + +She went past him down the steps without a word, and he followed her +through the garden. + +"Anne--" he said. + +Under the blackness of the yew hedge she turned to him, and their hands +met. + +"Don't be afraid," he said. "Next week I'll take you away somewhere till +it's over." + +"Where?" + +"Oh, somewhere a long way off, where you'll be happy." + +Somewhere a long way off, beyond this pain, beyond this day and this +night, their joy waited. + +"And Maisie?" she said. + +"Maisie wants you to be happy." + +He held her by the hand as he used to hold her when they were children, +to keep her safe. And hand in hand, like children, they went down +through the twilight of the fields, together. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Anne Severn and the Fieldings, by May Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS *** + +***** This file should be named 10817.txt or 10817.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/1/10817/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Terry Gilliland and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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