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diff --git a/old/69813-0.txt b/old/69813-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 23e67e4..0000000 --- a/old/69813-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5970 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Go she must!, by David Garnett - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Go she must! - -Author: David Garnett - -Release Date: January 16, 2023 [eBook #69813] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Steve Mattern, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GO SHE MUST! *** - - - - - - DAVID GARNETT - - GO SHE MUST! - - [Illustration] - - ALFRED·A·KNOPF: NEW YORK - - MCMXXVII - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1927, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. - - MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - TO - STEPHEN TOMLIN - - - - -CONTENTS - - - ONE: BIRDS IN THE SNOW 3 - - TWO: PLOUGH MONDAY 16 - - THREE: SOTHEBY’S SHOP 31 - - FOUR: THE TRAPEZE BOY 45 - - FIVE: THE FROST HELD 60 - - SIX: WINGED SEEDS 77 - - SEVEN: THE BURNT FARM 90 - - EIGHT: WILLOW-PATTERN PARIS 105 - - NINE: BIRTHDAY TEA 121 - - TEN: NO GOOD-BYES 134 - - ELEVEN: BEFORE THE SWALLOW DARES 150 - - TWELVE: RICHARD’S FRIENDS 165 - - THIRTEEN: PARIS 179 - - FOURTEEN: A REMOVAL 192 - - FIFTEEN: HONEYMOONING 213 - - SIXTEEN: ANGELS 228 - - - - -GO SHE MUST! - - - - -ONE: BIRDS IN THE SNOW - - -Snow lay thick over everything on the morning of the second Monday in -the year, and the Reverend Charles Dunnock, drawing back the curtains -of his bedroom window, said to himself that if the great sycamore full -of rooks’ nests in the churchyard were to fall, or even if a steeple -were to be built for the little church of Dry Coulter, such changes -would not alter the landscape so much as this snowstorm had done. -Buried under three inches of snow the country was recognizable, but -wholly transformed, and he asked himself how it was that a uniform -colouring should make a totally new world yet one which was composed of -familiar objects in their accustomed places. - -Indifferent to the cold, he gazed out of his bedroom window enchanted -by the beauty of the scene, and then, as he caught a glimpse of the -first horizontal beams of the sun falling on Nature’s wedding-cake, -he told himself that even the dullest witted of his dissenting -parishioners would feel compelled to cry out: “This is like Heaven! I -could fancy myself dead, and this Eternity!” - -“Yes”--he reflected--“all men must feel it, for that conceit is helped -out by the extraordinary stillness, the footfalls of man and bird and -beast are muffled, and the world seems empty. Nobody is stirring, for -there is nothing like a heavy fall of snow to keep people by their -firesides. Only the postman and the milkman go their rounds”; and while -he was dressing he heard their sudden knocks at the back door, with no -warning crunch of gravel, or sound of the gate slamming in the yard. - -“Their fidelity,” he said to himself, “is like that of the clocks -striking the hours when there is death in the house”--for Mrs. Dunnock -had died exactly a year before, and her death was always in his mind. -His bedroom had been her bedroom, though only for a few months, for she -had died soon after her husband had been presented with a living, and -since her death he slept alone in the great bed where she had waited so -often for him to come up from his study, and where he had always found -her with her soft hair spread like a bird’s wing over the pillow, and -in which she had died. - -“The clocks strike the hours in the moments of our greatest sorrow,” he -said to himself. “Nothing will keep them from the punctual discharge -of their duty, and listening to them we are recalled to this life, -we shoulder our burdens once more, we begin ticking again ourselves, -ticking away our ordinary lives.” - -He went to the looking-glass hanging over _her_ dressing-table and -began to comb his beard, then, looking once more out of the window, -watched two men pass by, leading a horse along the road to be roughed -at the blacksmith’s, a slow business, for one of the men had to throw -down sacks every few yards for it to step on, wherever the blizzard had -whirled away the snow and left a polished slide of ice. - -At a few minutes before nine he sat down to the breakfast table and -took the cup of tea that his daughter poured out for him; then, hearing -a shout, both Anne and he turned to the window and caught sight of a -red muffler flying in the wind, and a thrown snowball, but when the -children had passed, running on their way to school, all was silence, -for Mr. Dunnock had turned to read a circular which the postman had -brought that morning. - -“Evangelicals! Evangelicals!” he muttered angrily, for he was a -ritualist; a last flicker of the Oxford Movement had filled his life -with poetry. Then he pushed away the newspaper, and, taking some bread -for the birds, he rose from the breakfast table and went to the front -door. - -The world outside was dazzling, and the snow lay piled up deep before -the sill. Mr. Dunnock peered out, not daring to step in the snow in his -carpet slippers. He listened: not a sound; he looked and marked the -roofs which yesterday were but the edges of a row of tiles, to-day as -thick as thatch--like Christmas cards. “And here’s a robin,” he said, -“waiting for me to throw him some of the bread.” He threw a piece which -was lost in the snow. “A wedding-cake! How strange it is to reflect -that Anne is older now than her mother when I married her! Yes, the -world is become a wedding-cake. Something very strange has happened, -and who knows what will be the end of it? for it has begun to snow -again, and the rare flakes drift slowly to the ground like feathers -from the angels’ wings. Are they moulting up there? Or has Satan got -among them like a black cat which has climbed through the wire netting -into the dove loft?” - -Mr. Dunnock fetched a piece of cardboard from his study to serve as a -table for the birds, and dropped it a few feet away on to the snow, -then, crumbling the bread in his fingers, he threw the birds their -breakfast. Some of the crumbs fell on each side into the snow and were -lost. - -“Here they come,” he said to himself, for bright eyes had been watching -him from every tree and bush. - -The birds fluttered nearer, eyeing the crumbs spread out for them, and -then looking sideways at the tall, bearded man standing in the doorway. -Their fear was speedily forgotten, for the clergyman made it his habit -to feed them every morning, and soon the cardboard table was covered -with sparrows, robins, blackbirds, and thrushes, all of them flashing -their wings, bickering and scrambling for the finest crumbs like a -flock of bantams. And having been successful, one would often fly off -with a piece in his bill, which he wished to devour in solitude. - -Anne Dunnock remained at the breakfast table, for she had only just -finished the kipper on her plate. “The labourers will not go to work -in the fields on such a day as this,” she said to herself. “And not -a woman will venture out except me, for women’s boots are generally -leaky, and their skirts flap wet against their calves. With a frost -like this there should be skating, but the snow will have spoilt the -ice, even if it were swept.” She finished a piece of toast and rose -from the table to clear away the breakfast. The loaf was a pitiful -object, only a shell of crust, with all of the inside scooped out. - -“Another loaf gone,” she said to herself. “We always have stale crusts, -yet I am sure the birds would eat them as readily as they do the crumb, -and crusts are so nasty in bread-and-butter pudding.” - -Mr. Dunnock continued watching the birds, and the draught from the open -front door made his daughter shiver. “Birds! Birds! I should like to -wear a bird in my hat.” - -She was a tall girl, beautiful, with a small pale face, and -straw-coloured hair, hair which would not stay up; wherever she went -she scattered hairpins. She was still in mourning for her mother’s -death, and her long black dress fitted her badly, hindering her -impatient movements, and giving her the look of a converted savage -dressed in a missionary’s night-gown. - -“Father is feeding the birds. He never forgets them, and here am I -grudging them the crumb of the loaf. But housekeeping would have made -Saint Francis uncharitable, though Saint Francis would not have said he -wanted a bird for his hat.” - -The marmalade, the cruet, the silver toast rack, all were put away into -the mahogany sideboard, the tablecloth was brushed, and holding the -little wooden tray full of crumbs, she went out into the hall, where -her father still stood at the open door, and then leaning over his -shoulder she shook the crumbs out on to the snow, and, scared by her -sudden gesture, the birds flew off. - -“Oh, Anne, how stupid and inconsiderate you are!” exclaimed her father, -angrily. “How little imagination you have. Don’t you understand that -when you wave anything suddenly like that you frighten them? There was -such a fine missel-thrush too. He is not regular, and though the other -birds will soon come back, he will be discouraged. It is most vexing.” -Now that Mr. Dunnock had lost his congregation (a far larger one than -had ever attended a Communion service at Dry Coulter Church), he shut -the door, shaking his head irritably, then he put his beard in his -mouth, as if that were the best way to stifle his anger, and went into -his study. - -The book he took up fell from his hands before he had turned the second -or third page, for he had not the intellect nor the determination to -be a scholar. A beautiful word always set his mind chasing a beautiful -picture; his thoughts clouded over with dreams, and he remained lost in -meditation. When he came to himself it was to sink on to his knees in -prayer, for he was a shy man, unable to express himself to men, and -for that reason much given to communing with God. - -For twenty years he had been a poor curate at a church in the shadow -of Ely Cathedral, but he had not been popular: he was indifferent to -the things which were important to his fellow clergy, and his mystical -love of ritual had found no sympathizers, until at last the Bishop took -pity on him, and gave him a small living in a district in the fens. His -growing uncertainty of temper, combined with a sort of hopeless oddity, -had begun to make him a nuisance, and some provision had to be made. - -At Ely the Church is taken seriously: it is a great power, and on -taking up his new position, Mr. Dunnock was shocked to find it -completely disregarded, for the inhabitants of Dry Coulter are -Nonconformists. Even with the few who belonged to the church, he was -not a success. His sermons were incomprehensible, yet they might have -passed unnoticed if he had not affected a cassock and a biretta, if he -had not placed a crucifix on the Communion table and called a blessing -on the houses of the sick before he entered them. As vicar Mr. Dunnock -was a failure, and within less than a year he was regarded with far -greater contempt than is usually extended to the clergy. Yet he was -not a disappointed man, for he had never been ambitious of success, -and had never imagined that he might be popular. He knew that it was -too late in his life for him to make any effort; he was disinclined -to exert himself with his parishioners, and avoiding them as far as -he could, he was not unhappy. He had grown lazy, too, and now that it -was in his power, he neglected to hold the innumerable little services -which as a curate he had longed to celebrate. - -If his wife had lived he might perhaps have exerted himself, but -he knew that Anne did not share his emotions, and soon the special -days were passed over, and Mr. Dunnock remained sunk in melancholy. -Sometimes his conscience pricked him; then he shut himself up in his -room and remained for hours in prayer. - -“Damn the missel-thrush!” thought his daughter. “But father is always -irritable on Mondays; I have noticed it before. Life indeed would be -intolerable if it were not for the house. I have everything to make me -unhappy, but I love this house. Dear old Noah’s ark.” - -She went upstairs, where Maggie was waiting for her to help in making -the beds. Maggie Pattle was a girl of seventeen, who lived out with her -mother, and let herself into the vicarage early every morning, for she -was the only servant and came in by the day. Shorter than Anne, she -was fully twice as broad, a well-nourished girl, who would eat a pound -of sausages or of bacon at a sitting, washing it down with vinegar, and -her red cheeks shone with health. - -Anne often thought that if only Maggie had come from another village -she would have made an excellent servant; all her sluttish ways came -from her mother’s being just round the corner; she had only to slip -down the vicarage garden and through a hole in the hedge to be at home. -The cottage was so small, and Mrs. Pattle and her family so large, that -Anne thought of the old woman who lived in a shoe whenever she looked -at it; though Mrs. Pattle never seemed in any doubt what to do. She -knew when to slap a child, and when only to swear at it. - -No doubt she was a good mother, resembling very much one of the huge -sows which sometimes wandered over the village green in front of her -cottage--a sow whose steps were followed by a sounder of little porkers -trotting about in all directions. What if she did chastise one, or -even gobble it up? One would not be missed.... No, indeed, for how did -it come about that Mrs. Pattle had three children that all seemed to -be between two and three years old, yet none of them twins? Was one -of them Maggie’s? Anne thought not, but it was difficult to be sure, -and if the matter were not settled soon she would never know; on such -points the Pattles’ memories were not trustworthy. Yes, they were a -slipshod family, though not exactly what one would call an immoral -one.... - -Yet, though Anne despised Maggie for her sluttishness and -untruthfulness, in some ways she admired her. Maggie was a good girl, -she did what she was told, had a passion for washing floors, and was -not a bad cook. Then she would go anywhere at any time, and do anything -for anybody to oblige. Mrs. Pattle’s cottage was crawling with babies, -could one of them be the fruit of this cheery good-nature? - -But if Anne admired the way Maggie scrubbed the scullery floor, she -felt envy when she saw her sauntering along the lanes with her hands in -her pockets, whistling like a ploughboy, and stopping to speak to every -person she met on the road. Did she envy Maggie only because she had so -many friends, or was it partly because she knew all the boys and the -young men, and went in the grove in the evenings, coming out with her -cheeks no redder than they were by nature? - -Why was it, Anne asked herself, that she could not whistle as she -walked along in her long black dress and her black straw hat? She -had no friends to talk to except the village people, and she could -only visit them if they were ill, or in trouble. That, and watching -her father feed the birds, was not enough to fill her life. She read, -and when the young carters went ploughing she laid aside her book to -watch them as they passed the house, sitting sideways on their great -horses. Anne liked the way men whistled, and their deep voices as -they spoke to the cart-horses drinking at the pond, voices so full of -restraint and kindliness. There was no way for her to speak to these -young men who looked so cheerful as they went by to work in their rough -clothes, though sometimes, when she was out on a long walk and was far -from home, she had tried to get into conversation with a young farmer -leaning over a gate, or with a gamekeeper idling along the edge of a -wood, his black and white spaniel at his heels. - -But the beds had to be made, and since she liked to sleep in a big -four-poster that they had found in the vicarage on their arrival, and -her father also slept in a large bed, she helped Maggie to turn the -mattresses. - -It takes two to make a bed properly, and with an unselfish companion -who does not take more than her fair share of the sheets to tuck in on -her side, it is pleasant work. - -How the mattress bends and coils on itself, somersaulting heavily like -a whale, and how brave the great linen sheet looks as you turn it down! -The last of the two beds was made, and they were tucking in the quilt -when a strange sound came from outside the house--a confused noise of -voices singing. Was it a hymn? - -“Whatever can that be, Maggie?” she asked. - -“That’s the carters come, Miss,” the girl answered. “It is Plough -Monday to-day.” - -“What is Plough Monday?” - -Maggie could only stare at this question--she could not answer it, -except by saying: - -“Well, they always keep Plough Monday round here, though not properly, -like they used to do. They came to the gate last year, but I told them -not to come singing with your mother lying ill.” - -“I shall go and see,” said Anne, and she ran across the landing -from her bedroom, which faced the garden, into her father’s, which -overlooked the road. - - - - -TWO: PLOUGH MONDAY - - -The sound of voices came again, men and boys singing, one out of tune -with the others, but all ringing with the same fresh gaiety and purity -through the frosty air, reminding the hearer of the sharp notes of -the blacksmith’s hammer raining on the anvil, and giving him the same -assurance that the very texture of man’s ordinary life is a beautiful -and joyous fabric. - -This time Anne could hear the words of the song. - - One morning very early, - The ploughboy he was seen - All hastening to the stable - His horses for to clean. - -She ran to the window and, looking out into the whiteness, she was -blinded for the first moment by the sun shining on to the dazzling -field of snow, but in the next instant she perceived three great -chestnut horses standing just below her immediately in front of the -door. They were harnessed to a plough, at the handles of which stood a -labourer, whilst at the head of each of the horses was a young carter, -and on the foremost of the horses were two little boys riding. It was -the voices of these little boys which were so oddly out of tune. - -Anne was astonished to see them with their plough and horses so close -to the doorstep, and was filled with a sense of strangeness even before -she saw what was most strange about these visitors. That a plough -should be standing so close to the house was strange, and even for the -moment seemed to her shocking, for one of the horses was standing on -a flower-bed, but this was nothing to the appearance of the men, for -all of them had their faces blacked and their shoulders and their caps -were white with snow. The black faces against the whiteness of the snow -frightened her; for a moment she caught her breath with fear, which -turned almost instantly to wonder and delight. - - With chaff and corn - He did them bait, - Their tails and manes - He did comb straight. - -What was it? What was it? Something strange, something beautiful, the -thing perhaps she had always wanted, and half guessed at, but which -she had never before met face to face. - -The tune changed: - - Come all you lads and lasses - See a gay ploughboy. - -Gay, yes, they were gay; the snow was falling, and the sun was shining, -and they had blacked their faces and come to her doorstep, and one -black face with an open pink mouth was looking up at her in the window. - - Please can you spare a halfpenny - For an old ploughboy? - A bit of bread and cheese - Is better than nothing. - -The song was over; one of the young carters came to the door and gave -a knock which echoed through the house. Anne started, woken from her -rapt contemplation of the horses and the men, and still repeating under -her breath: “Beautiful, they are beautiful!” she ran downstairs to open -the door. Mr. Dunnock, however, was there before her, and from the hall -she could see nothing of the men with their black faces, nor of the -plough, nor the horses with their satin coats, their manes flecked with -snow, and their tails twisted up in plaits of straw; her father’s back -blocked the doorway, and she could hear his voice in anger. - -“That’s enough of this foolery. You should know better than to trample -down the lawn and the flower-bed.” - - Give us a shilling and we shall be glad, - Give us a penny and we shall go home, - -piped the two little boys from the horse’s back. “Please, Sir, it’s -Plough Monday, we like to keep it up.” - -“I have nothing for you,” said her father. “I have quite enough -deserving objects for my charity.” He shut the door, and found himself -face to face with his daughter. - -“Some village clod-hoppers have come begging,” said the clergyman, -throwing back his head and giving vent to a cough of irritation. “They -actually brought three horses and a plough over the flower-beds and up -to the door.” - -“They won’t have hurt the flower-beds, father, in this weather, with so -much snow on the ground,” said Anne. - -“Perhaps not,” he answered, “but they have made a great mess of the -snow in front of the house; besides I had wished to measure the -footprints of the birds.” - -“You might have given them something, they seemed so jolly.” - -“Jolly?” Mr. Dunnock’s cough became almost a bark. “It is not my -idea of jollity, nor I should have hoped yours, for yokels to black -their faces in imitation of Christie minstrels, and come begging for -money simply because they are given a day’s holiday on account of the -weather.” - -“But, father, I think that it is an old custom, and that they expect to -be given money.” - -Mr. Dunnock gazed at his daughter with real surprise. - -“I won’t hear of it. I most strongly disapprove. They may try other -people. I am not going to be victimized, or imposed on. Old custom? -Remember what the midshipman said in his letter to his mother: ‘Manners -they have none, and their customs are beastly.’” The clergyman -recovered himself sufficiently to laugh at his own joke, but when his -daughter moved towards the door, he said angrily: “I forbid you to -encourage them, Anne; the incident is closed and I have sent them away.” - -The local Christie minstrels, however, had not gone away, and as Mr. -Dunnock spoke a loud knock resounded on the door. - -“You had better go upstairs, Anne. Kindly leave me to deal with them.” - -Anne ran upstairs, trembling with rage, and rushed into her father’s -bedroom, where, by looking out of window, she was able to see what was -going on and overhear most of what was being said. - -When Mr. Dunnock opened the door he found all the ploughmen gathered in -a group on the doorstep. - -“It’s Plough Monday, Sir, and we have come to keep it, and ask you for -a piece of money for our song.” - -“I have told you already to go away,” said the clergyman, coughing with -exasperation. “I don’t give money to beggars.” - -There was a silence, then one of the young men at the back laughed -and said: “He doesn’t tumble to it; tell the parson that it is Plough -Monday.” - -“Where would you be if there weren’t no ploughmen, or no ploughing -done?” asked the spokesman of the group. “You wouldn’t get no tithes if -it weren’t for the plough.” - -There was a chorus of approval at that. - -“No, that you wouldn’t!” - -“He can’t answer that, Fred.” - -They shouted, but at the word _tithes_ Mr. Dunnock had slammed the -door in their faces. The ploughmen knocked again, and for some minutes -the sound echoed through every room in the house. Anne could see that -they were puzzled, and in some doubt what to do next. One or two of -them were laughing, another scratched his head while he said: “Called -us beggars, did he? Reckon we work as hard as he.” Presently they -retreated to one corner of the garden and remained talking together for -some little while, until Maggie appeared from round the corner of the -kitchen and called out to them. - -“You had best go away,” she said. “The parson he says you are a lot -of lazy louts. I heard him. He won’t give you naught. You won’t get -nothing if you do plough his doorstep up.” The ploughmen did not answer -her, nor did they appear to pay any attention to her words, but slowly -went back to their horses’ heads. “What must be, must be,” said the -oldest of the company, laying hold of the handles of the plough. “I’ld -as lief keep the custom. Come on, boys!” he shouted. At these words -Anne could see that they all suddenly recovered their good humour, and -a moment after they began joking among themselves. - -“Parson will have to wipe his feet on his mat before we have done with -him,” said one lad. - -“There won’t be anyone shy of paying us our pennies after this,” added -another. - -“Let him preach what sermon he likes next Sunday; there won’t be no one -but his daughter and our Maggie to hear him swearing.” - -“Hey, my beauties!” shouted the ploughman at the handles. - -The great horses strained and began to move; the young carters at their -heads shouted and led the team in a wide circle across the untouched -snowfield which was the lawn; the plough sidled and circled through the -snow, and the men began arguing with the horses. - -“Hold back, can’t you!” - -“Steady there, whoa.” - -At last, after one horse had nearly put its head through the window of -Mr. Dunnock’s study, and another had trampled down a rose bush, the -plough was got into position at the far corner of the house. After -that they all waited while the ploughman left the handles and began to -hammer at part of his plough. - -The fear which Anne had felt when she first looked out returned to her, -and the sense of strangeness persisted. Was she waking or dreaming, was -she afraid or was she glad? Suddenly she heard Maggie’s voice saying in -excited tones: - -“You are never going to plough up Mr. Dunnock’s doorstep!” and hearing -these words Anne began to tremble. - -At last the ploughman straightened his back and said: - -“Calls us idle beggars, does he? And too busy to speak with us; we’ll -mark Plough Monday in his prayer-book. Get up there....” - -The horses strained, and the plough sank through the snow into the -soft earth of a flower-bed, the traces tightened and the three horses -pulled; a wrinkle or two showed itself in their haunches, and the share -of the plough threw up a broad streak of raw earth. - -“Steady, boys, steady by the doorstep,” called the ploughman, and the -carters edged the horses nearer in to the wall of the house. In a -moment the plough reached the door, and Anne, gazing down from above, -saw the flagstone lift and topple, while the plough ran swiftly on, and -the earth streamed out upon the snow. - -“I must stop them,” she whispered, but she did not move, or take her -eyes off the scene. Watching from above, the girl was fascinated -and horrified by every detail; the swift and irresistible progress -of the hidden ploughshare running through the earth delighted her; -the strength of the three stalwart Suffolk Punches, and the lean, -sinewy wrists of the ploughman guiding the handles, and the gay young -men, all thrilled her. While watching, she could not have told what -were her emotions: yet she knew that the scene was beautiful, the -plough slipping so easily in the rich earth had the grace and lissom -strength of a snake. Once again the horses turned, sweeping down and -halting beside the hedge of laurel, and there was another pause while -the plough was got into position, and then the team swept round and -strained forward again to cut the second furrow, and, that finished, to -draw the plough out into the roadway in front of the vicarage, while -the ploughman threw the handles on one side and held them down so that -the share skidded through the snow over the grass. - -The men did not call out, nor even appear to speak or to laugh among -themselves; having cut their two furrows, they went away swiftly, -pausing only for a moment on the road to adjust the ploughshare, and -then hurrying on to sing their songs under other windows. - -Only when the plough had turned the corner of the lane and the last -of the horses’ heads had vanished down the avenue of elm trees, did -Anne Dunnock leave her position at the window, and only then did she -burst into a flood of tears. “I cannot live after such an insult,” -she said to herself. “How could they do such a thing to our house? But -why is it that it seemed to me so beautiful as well as so cruel?” and -as she asked herself this question she noticed that though she had -dried her tears her hands were still trembling. “The lawn of virgin -snow has been torn up by the plough, the naked earth exposed, and the -garden trampled over by the iron shoes of the horses and the hobnails -of the labourers,” she said. “And our doorstep has been overturned; my -father’s fault, for he was in the wrong. I feel now as if I could never -forgive him for bringing this shame on us, yet if it had not been him -it might have been me, for the same fault of character is in both of -us. We are rejected everywhere, unable to share in the life around us, -or to understand it. Enid taught me that at Ely, but to-day it has been -recognized by the ploughmen, and this broad gash in the earth and the -uprooted doorstep proclaim it to our neighbours. I shall never dare -show my face in the village after this.” - -So saying, Anne Dunnock found herself sobbing again. “This is too -silly,” she told herself, yet the tears continued to flow, until she -gave up resisting them and lay down on the bed in her own room. She -thought of Enid, to whom she had written so many poems and so many -passionate letters, only to discover that they had been shown to all -the girls in the school, that they had been borrowed and read aloud in -every bathroom where there were girls talking before going to bed. “I -could have killed Enid; she made all the girls in Ely think that I was -perfectly ridiculous.” And all the bitter experiences of her life came -back into her mind and were confused with her present unhappiness. - -“Why should we suffer from this?” she asked herself, after a few -moments of weeping. “For I know father suffers from it as much as I -do, though he has never spoken of it to me, and perhaps not even to -himself. Is it because he is a clergyman, or is it because we are in -some way superior, cleverer, or better than our neighbours? No,” she -answered herself, “it cannot be that, for though I am intelligent, -perhaps even remarkably intelligent, father is terribly stupid. In fact -he is almost deficient in some respects, and I am sure neither he nor I -are superior morally. We are both too emotional and too ready to lose -our tempers. All our troubles spring from the fact that father is a -clergyman, for whether they recognize it or not, ordinary people have -a contempt for the clergy, and clergymen are always ill at ease with -their fellow men. Thank God father isn’t one of the hearty sort; in -his own way he is an honest man and a religious one, but he has ruined -my life. It is Ibsen’s _Ghosts_ over again,” for Anne had been reading -Ibsen lately. Then a phrase from another book she had been reading, De -Quincey’s _Opium-eater_, came into her mind: “Unwinding the accursed -chain.” - -“How can I unwind the accursed chain?” she asked herself. “I must begin -soon, for I am twenty-three, and the best part of my life is gone.” - -“It is no good crying over spilt milk,” she said, and went on: “At all -events I am glad that they did not go away when father told them to -go; I am glad that they tore up our garden with that narrow snake-like -plough wobbling a little as it ran through the earth. I am glad of it, -though I shall find it hard to face our neighbours after this, for they -will have changed. Everyone will know of our disgrace.” - -She rose from her bed and tidied her hair before the glass; as usual -all the hairpins had fallen. Then turning to the window she looked out -over the untouched snowfield at the back of the house where not even a -dog had run as yet. Everything was covered, even the winter jessamine -on the summer-house was concealed, and the black poplars beyond the -pond had every twig laden with snow. - -“All will be forgotten as soon as the snows are melted,” she said to -herself suddenly, with the certainty that her words were true. “All my -emotion is nonsense. To me everything seems changed, but it is only -a joke to the carters; they will laugh about it over a pint of beer -to-day, but in a week’s time they will have forgotten it; the fact that -some dog has killed a rat will seem more important. My life is not -changed: to-morrow the mason will come to lay the doorstep in its old -place, and I shall say: ‘It’s a fine day,’ when I go to the grocer’s -shop, and: ‘Very seasonable weather,’ when I take the loaves from the -baker. That is the nearest that I shall ever get to contact with my -fellows; why should they care how we live, what we do, or whether we -disgrace ourselves or not? We mean nothing to them.” - -And Anne Dunnock, who only a few moments before had been weeping -because the world was changed, began suddenly to weep again because it -appeared to her that it had not changed and that it would always remain -the same. This time the tears were not so readily checked, for one tear -brings the next after it, and Anne remained hidden in her bedroom until -Maggie knocked at the door to say that lunch was on the table. But by -then she herself had forgotten what had so much moved her less than -two hours before, for she had taken up _Peer Gynt_, and as she went -downstairs she was thinking not of the carters with their black faces -and the snow on their caps, but of the trolls. - - - - -THREE: SOTHEBY’S SHOP - - -In the night the wind changed to the west and rain fell, so that by -morning the snow was gone from the grass, and only lingered in a few -places, on the roads and on the bare earth of the kitchen garden, -and the rain which thawed the snow washed away the memory of Plough -Monday, thus bringing to pass what Anne had fancied sooner than she had -expected. - -She no longer felt ashamed to go into the village, and as for her -father, half an hour after the event he had forgotten his irritation in -watching the starlings searching for worms in the loose earth thrown up -by the plough. - -After breakfast, old Noah, the gardener, busied himself in filling in -the furrow, and old Simmonds, who called himself a builder and fencing -contractor, came round and, after mixing a little mortar on a board, -laid the doorstep back, only a trifle askew, in its old place. - -“There’s your doorstep, Miss,” he said, straightening his back as Anne -opened the front door and stood on the threshold prepared for walking. -“There’s your doorstep; no one will ever shift that again.” - -Simmonds was right, for Anne lacked the courage to tell him to take it -up and set it straight. - -“May I step on it?” she asked. - -“Ay, he’ll bear your weight, Miss,” said the old man blinking, and to -prove his words he stepped on to the doorstep himself, blocking her -path while he stamped once or twice with his hobnailed boots. - -“Is that firm enough for you, Miss?” he asked, speaking with melancholy -pride, and then standing aside for her to walk on it herself. - -“Yes, that seems all right, Simmonds,” she said, stepping on to the -stone, and was aware as she spoke that her words were meaningless, for -why should the old man be so proud of the force of gravity which kept -the doorstep where it lay? Why should she have to give him credit for -it? - -“I was going to speak to your father, Miss, about the sills,” said -Simmonds. - -“About what?” - -“It’s a long time since they were painted, and the wood is perishing. I -thought perhaps your father might like me to estimate for them.” - -Anne frowned; the question of the sills annoyed her, but she could not -escape until she had looked at them. - -Simmonds was right--the paint on the window-sills had cracked into -hundreds of little grey lichenous cups. - -“I’ll speak to him about it,” she said. “We must have it done one day.” - -The elm trees were so beautiful; it was because of the elms that she -loved Dry Coulter. Soon the spring would come, soon the snowdrops would -cluster thickly under the garden walls, and every day that passed -improved the quality of the birds’ song. - -“There is no prison so terrible as beauty,” she said suddenly to -herself. “I love the seasons, the beauty of the village, the clouds, -and the tall groves of elms standing round the green. I love our -orchard with its old apple trees, and the pears; I dream in the winter -of what the crop will be in the following autumn, fearing that the -bullfinches will take the buds, or the blossom be cut down by a late -frost, yet time is flying--and while my blood runs fast as it does now -I must walk demurely like the old woman that I shall so soon become. -Yes, I shall be old before I am free to live as I should like. Shall -I ever go to the opera? A cheap seat would do--I cannot expect a box, -or emeralds, but one can hear as well from the gallery, and it is -the music that I want to hear. Shall I escape one day? Shall I go to -London?” - -Then it came into her mind that perhaps even if she went to London, -even if she got to know interesting men (and such beings must exist), -even if she went to the opera with them, she might still feel herself -a prisoner, and that perhaps the most that one can do in life is to -exchange one sort of beauty for another; the beauty of the apple trees -for the beauty of music. - -“Yes, there is no prison so terrible as beauty,” she said again, and -added immediately: “Now I must go to the grocer’s,” and though she -disliked the grocer himself, she smiled with pleasure at the thought -that she might see his little daughter Rachel. - -“_Emmanuel Sotheby, Grocer and Provision Merchant_” was painted over -the little shop with its windows filled with bars of soap, packets of -starch, clay pipes, and walnuts, for Sotheby dealt in everything, and -though the shop was small, the stock was large. Sotheby always had -what you wanted: calico, mustard, cotton, China tea, boot polish, even -lamp chimneys. There was no shop so good as Sotheby’s in the nearest -town: there was nothing better than Sotheby’s even in Ely, yet would -he be able to provide her with drawing-pins? It was unlikely, almost -impossible, and Anne determined not to mention them until she had made -her other purchases; she would only speak of them just before she left -the shop. In that way Mr. Sotheby would not feel that she had expected -too much of him, or think that she was disappointed. With her hand on -the latch, she said to herself: “I will not speak of the drawing-pins -if there are other customers,” but the shop was empty, and the jangling -bell brought Mrs. Sotheby out of an inner room. The grocer’s wife was -a slender woman of fifty; her pale wrinkled face made her seem older, -though her hair was still a beautiful brown, and when she smiled she -showed two even rows of little pearly teeth. Mrs. Sotheby was always -merry; whenever Anne came into the shop her brown eyes twinkled, or -she broke into a low musical laugh, while her face crumpled itself up -into all its wrinkles, her white teeth flashed, and her eyes almost -vanished. Such a merry laugh greeted Anne that morning, and Mrs. -Sotheby explained it by a reference to the events of the day before. - -“Good morning, Miss Dunnock, I have been hearing such dreadful things -all yesterday about the ploughmen. I am afraid they must have upset -your father, but you must not take any notice of them. It is all -foolishness, and I don’t know what the men can have been thinking of, -but, of course, it is an old custom and they like keeping it on that -account. You know men are just like boys about anything like that, but -they did not mean to be disrespectful or unneighbourly, I’m sure. Your -father is still rather a stranger here; I expect he did not understand -their ways.” - -At Mrs. Sotheby’s words Anne started, all her shame came back to her -suddenly, but she saw that she must answer. A lump came in her throat, -and her mouth trembled as she said: - -“No, neither father nor I had ever heard of Plough Monday. It was -entirely my father’s fault: he is sometimes impatient when he is -disturbed reading.” - -“It was very foolish of the men,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “And they should -feel ashamed of themselves, but directly I heard of it I knew there was -a misunderstanding of some sort. It happens so easily, only I thought -I would speak of it, because you know it is an old custom, and the men -are proud of keeping it here, so you must make allowances for them.” - -The kindliness of these words was more than Anne could bear. “Thank -you, thank you so much,” she cried, and suddenly she found that her -tears would flow--she could not keep them back, though she shook her -head angrily, and as she did so a couple of hairpins dropped on to the -floor. - -At that moment a shadow passed in front of the windows; there was the -sound of wheels, and a horse being pulled up short in front of the shop. - -Anne looked about her wildly, but Mrs. Sotheby had lifted a flap of the -counter and was saying: - -“Come into our parlour and sit down for a little while, Miss Dunnock; -it was foolish of me to speak, but I never guessed you would have taken -such nonsense to heart. If one were to pay attention to half the silly -things men do, our lives would not be worth living.” - -Anne followed Mrs. Sotheby through the shop into a little room, with -a coal fire burning in the grate. She sat down in the armchair pushed -forward for her, while the grocer’s wife hurried back into the shop, -summoned by the jangling bell. For a little while Anne was overcome -with mortification at finding herself in the grocer’s parlour and -wondered how she could have so disgraced herself. - -Why, if she must cry every morning (and it seemed to have become a -habit), could she not retire to her own room and weep in solitude? -But after a few moments of humiliation the thought came into her mind -that at last she had disgraced herself finally and for ever, and this -reflection was a consolation to her. - -“I cannot undo this. If I were to steal out of the back door without -Mrs. Sotheby hearing me, it would make no difference. I have shown her -my feelings; I have burst into tears in her shop; I cannot pretend to -have any dignity after this.” - -Anne dried the last of her tears, reflecting that it was exciting -to have made a fool of herself, and that if she had not lost her -self-control she would never have been asked into that parlour. Then, -taking off her hat, she began tidying her hair and looking about her. - -The room she was in was small and richly furnished with uncomfortable -armchairs, upholstered in dark red plush; there was a table covered -with a red cloth, which had a fringe of little balls; a slowly -ticking clock stood on the mantelpiece; on a small table, before the -window, stood a large green pot containing an arum lily with one leaf -half-unfurled and a white bud showing; from the curtain rod hung a wire -cage full of maidenhair ferns. On the walls were photographs: Mr. and -Mrs. Sotheby on their wedding day, a plump and rather ugly young woman, -the Tower Bridge with a ship going through it, and a boy with pomatum -on his hair. Then, turning her head, Anne saw a large photograph -hanging just behind her. - -“What a strange face!” for the young man certainly had a strange face, -and was wearing an odd little round cap, almost like a skull-cap, with -a tiny tail sticking up in the middle; his throat was bare, with no -sign of a collar or tie, or even of a shirt. A cigarette was hanging -out of the corner of his mouth, but the strangest thing was not the -cap, but the face, or rather the expression of the face, for the -features themselves were vaguely familiar. The young man was laughing, -but there was a look of careless contempt, almost of insolence, which -Anne very much disliked. The nose was long and straight, and rather -foxy, the eyes mere slits set wide apart; the forehead was broad -and large, but the chin feeble. “Good gracious me!” exclaimed Anne, -noticing that in one ear there was a little earring. “A man wearing -an earring! How extraordinary!” She gazed at the photograph for some -time, taking in every detail of the face. Certainly there was something -disagreeable in the expression; the laughter was untrustworthy and -heartless; he was laughing at other people, not sharing his laughter -with them. - -But the customer was staying a long while in the shop, and, becoming -impatient, she went to the door and listened. The voice she heard was -that of Mr. Lambert, a young farmer, whom Anne knew since he attended -church (he was a churchwarden), and once he had stopped her in the road -and told her that she should go riding. - -To Anne his remark had seemed ridiculous, since he must know well -enough that they were too poor to keep a hack for her use, and he could -not have meant that he had one for her to ride. - -If he had wished to say: “If you get the habit, I’ll mount you on one -of my horses,” why hadn’t he said so? He could not have intended that, -and even if he had, what would she have answered? What did he expect in -return? That she should go riding with him? She smiled at the thought: -Mr. Lambert’s company might not be so bad, but she would not care for -it if she were under an obligation to him. If she killed his horse in -taking a fence ... that would be awkward! And if he met a girl whom he -liked better as a companion on his rides--in that case she would be -left with the habit on her hands. Her father would never allow such a -thing; think of the gossip there would be! - -“Damn this place! Damn my father!” she said to herself, and listening -to the farmer’s sharp, but very pleasant voice, and closing her eyes, -she had for a moment the delicious sensation of the horse bounding -under her, of patting its withers, listening to the creak of the -saddle, and keeping her balance while she looked proudly over the level -landscape of the fens. - -“I will, I will, I will,” she repeated to herself. “I will ride a -horse once in my life. I will even if I get left with a riding habit. -But I suppose that is the spirit which brings young girls to ruin. -I can imagine how Maggie would say to herself: ‘I will let my head -be turned by a man, even if I am left with a baby.’” Anne laughed at -the comparison. “Silly thoughts.... They hurry me on to absurdities, -and all because Mr. Lambert said something polite and meaningless to -me, for it is politeness to assume that one can do whatever one likes -without regard for money. But here am I laughing when I ought still -to be sobbing, since I am still waiting for Mrs. Sotheby to come and -console me. What shall I do? How on earth, by what false pretences, did -I ever get into this cosy little room? If Mr. Lambert does not go away -soon, I shall march into the shop, lift the flap in the counter and go -away.” - -She listened then to the voices. “Very good, Mrs. Sotheby, you shall -have the pig for scalding on Thursday, unless Mr. Sotheby sends me word -to-morrow.” - -The bell of the shop tinkled; Mr. Lambert paused to add a last word, -and Mrs. Sotheby answered him: “Well, if you say so, Mr. Lambert,” and -Anne could hear her hand on the latch. - -“Well, I thought Mr. Lambert was never going. He had come to see Mr. -Sotheby about carting sand, and really I didn’t know what to say to -him. Now I have agreed to share a pig with him; let me know if you -would like a leg of pork, or sausages, or one of my pork cheeses. My -husband is so busy now; I hardly see him from morning till night; he is -putting up some cottages at Linton, and his mind is far more on them -than on the grocery business, so that I have quite as much as I can -manage. I am really sorry that I undertook to scald the pig, but it -was rather tempting. Still, however many pigs I scald, I shall never -do half so much as Emmanuel does; he’s out every day of the week, and -drives the round himself, and then he preaches twice every Sunday, -here and in the Ebenezer Tabernacle at Wet Coulter. Mr. Lambert wanted -to see him in a hurry, but I could not tell him where to find my -husband. I cannot keep in my head half the things he is doing, and I -have not yet been out to see the Linton cottages. Still, it keeps him -in good spirits, and he is doing it for my boy. But I mustn’t keep you -any longer now.” Mrs. Sotheby stopped speaking, she smiled, and added -rather shyly: “You will come and chat with me sometimes, won’t you, -Miss Dunnock?” - -Anne promised to come again soon, and spoke of the arum lily beginning -to unfold its flower, and then, passing through into the shop, asked -for curry powder and sultanas. - -When these had been given her, she hesitated, asking herself whether, -after Mrs. Sotheby’s kindness, she could ask for drawing-pins. Perhaps -Mr. Sotheby would fetch some from Linton, but at that moment she felt -shy of asking a man who was building a row of cottages to execute her -little commissions. She would wait until another day for that. But on -the doorstep she paused: - -“Thank you for being so kind to me. I shall always come and talk to you -if I am upset by anything.” - -The face behind the counter broke into hundreds of wrinkles, the little -teeth shone, and a delighted laugh answered her. “Like pouring water -out of a glass bottle,” thought Anne as she went out into the winter -sunshine. - -There was happiness, who could doubt it? The secret of life was to -be like the Sothebys, and to work as they did, absorbed in building -cottages. Would she ever think the prospect of scalding a pig too -tempting to be refused, if she were over-worked already? - -“Mr. Sotheby must be very enterprising,” she said to herself, trying -to conquer her dislike for him, and forgot the grocer in gazing at the -distant elms which bounded the far side of the village green a quarter -of a mile away, for in the middle of the village was a long and lovely -stretch of common pasture. - -But who was the boy for whom Mr. Sotheby worked so hard? And Anne -remembered that Maggie Pattle had once told her that the Sothebys had a -son. Why was it that she had imagined that he was dead? But it did not -occur to her to connect him with the photograph in the parlour, for she -was looking at the elm trees, and listening to the song of a thrush; -then gazing at the roof of Lambert’s barn, bathed in sunlight, she felt -her heart beating happily, and asked herself why had she felt beauty -was a prison? She could be happy in that village for ever, for spring -was coming, and the birds were singing. - - - - -FOUR: THE TRAPEZE BOY - - -A hard frost came early in February. - -“If this lasts,” said Mr. Dunnock eagerly, “we shall have skating the -day after to-morrow,” but his face clouded quickly, and he put down -his cup with a gesture of annoyance. The day after to-morrow would be -Sunday. - -“We may be in for a long spell of frost,” said Anne, but, reminded of -his duties, her father was not in the mood to be consoled. “A frost -brings more suffering than you or I can quite realize, my dear,” he -said severely. “Think of the poor, without the coal or the blankets to -keep them warm; think of the seamen in the rigging of ships; think of -the outcasts on the roads; think of the birds.” - -“Think of the polar bears,” said Anne under her breath, as her father -rose from the table and scooped out the crumb of the loaf. - -“The trap ought to be here in ten minutes; I shall be back from Ely -by the eight o’clock train,” he said, and with these words went to -the front door where an impatient flock of sparrows was waiting his -arrival. - -When the trap came, she went to the gate and watched her father drive -away, wondering whether he would meet Enid in the street. “I am glad I -am not going. Now the rest of the day is mine. Mine, and I am free to -do whatever I choose!” - -The road was like iron; it rang under the pony’s hoofs, and Anne -thought she had never seen a lovelier morning; the spell of the frost -was more beautiful than the enchanted world of the snow had been a -month before, though it was not so strange. Every twig was fledged with -rime, for there had been a fog during the night, but already the sun -had broken through the mist, the sky was showing blue overhead, and the -white tops of the elms were blushing in the sunshine. - -“Every tree is smothered in snowy blossom; it is as if spring had -come,” and she thought that the flowering time of the cherry in Japan -could not equal the beauty of this February morning in England. When -she turned to go back into the house she noticed that the bare wall of -the vicarage was covered with hoarfrost, an opalescent bloom shining in -the sunlight. - -“A fairy palace fit for the Snow Queen or the Sleeping Beauty,” she -said, and the words reminded her that Maggie must be waiting for her to -make the beds. - -“You ought to see the fat woman,” said Maggie Pattle. “Her bosom was -bigger than that pair of marrows Mr. Lambert gave for Harvest Festival; -there’s a paper outside says she is only twenty and weighs nineteen -stone. I shall never call Ida Whalley fat again, after last night.” - -Linton Fair lasted two days, and the merry-go-rounds were staying till -the end of the week. - -“I went in the swing-boats, and I went to the circus, and I spent seven -shillings altogether,” said Maggie with triumph. - -Anne shuddered at the fat woman, but when Maggie spoke of the circus, -of the little lady who rode on a pink horse and jumped through paper -hoops, and of a horse that undressed and went to bed and drew up the -sheets with its teeth, she wished that she could go herself. - -“Why not? Why not?” she wondered. “Why should I not go this afternoon? -There is no disgrace in going to the fair, and there are the -drawing-pins that I have to buy at Linton. I must begin trying to do -some fashion plates. Besides, I should enjoy the walk on a day like -this.” - -The six miles of road brought a glow of colour into her cheeks, and she -felt her heart beat with excitement as she crossed the old bridge over -the Ouse, and entered the little town. The streets were crowded with -men and beasts; the market place was full of farmers and machinery, -and half a dozen cheap-jacks, each surrounded by a dense crowd, were -shouting against each other. - -Anne quickened her pace; the noise of a steam organ told her that the -merry-go-rounds were in a field near the railway station, but when she -had passed the first booths, the coco-nut shies, the rifle-range, and -the places where she was invited to win cups and saucers by throwing -rings, she suddenly became embarrassed. Just in front of her were the -swing-boats sure enough, laden with shrieking girls; beyond them a -great merry-go-round painted with all the majesty of a heathen temple, -and loaded with strange idols: swans, dolphins, lions, and ostriches, -turned slowly round like a monstrous humming-top, and near by was the -vast curving canvas wall of the circus. - -She was surrounded by a happy crowd, but she could not mingle with it. - -Already her pink cheeks had drawn upon her the notice of a group of -young farmers; it was clear to her that she could not visit the circus -unless she went with a companion. At that moment she envied Maggie -her freedom as she had never done before; Maggie, who might laugh or -scream until her voice drowned the hurdy-gurdy, and who could answer -back when a man spoke to her without anyone thinking the worse. - -What would be said if she, Miss Dunnock, the daughter of the vicar -of Dry Coulter, were to try to win a coco-nut? Many of her father’s -parishioners must be in town, and, with flagging footsteps, Anne passed -by the entrance to the field full of merry-go-rounds, and walked slowly -on towards the railway station. - -Within the great tent of the circus she could hear the thumping of the -ponies’ hoofs, the crack of the circus-master’s whip, and the falsetto -note of a clown’s voice, followed by a roar of rustic laughter and -clapping hands; then, passing on, she came in view of the showmen’s -encampment: a score of caravans with smoking chimneys, groups of -hobbled ponies, and women carrying pails of water, hanging out washing, -and preparing the evening meal. - -“A curious life,” the girl said to herself. “Wandering from town to -town, roaming from one country to another, for the circus I see here -may be at Nizhninovgorod next summer and in Italy or Spain six months -after that. The women must have a hard life, but I would rather be one -of them than the wife or daughter of a clergyman. If I were to join -them; but that cannot be--some dark woman would stab me rather than -have me for her daughter-in-law, yet if one of these handsome gipsies -asked me, I would not hesitate to go with him. I would rather that my -son were a clown or a lion-tamer than an archdeacon or a bishop.” - -Anne roused herself after a few minutes; the sun was setting, she felt -chilly, and her thoughts had depressed her. “My mind runs in a circle,” -she said. “Whatever I see, whatever I do, I come back to the thought -that I am an outcast unable to share in the life around me, or to enjoy -it, and that somehow I must escape from my surroundings, for I cannot -live any longer without friends.” - -She turned back towards the market place, for there is nothing more -gloomy than an empty railway station, resolving to buy what she needed -and then go home without delay. - -“Loneliness is terrible, and I have not got a friend in the world. -The worst fate which can befall a human being is to be born a young -lady,” and meeting the gaze of a handsome gipsy with gold earrings, she -added: “I can see that I do not attract him; he does not care for young -ladies, and he is wise. We are an unhealthy, artificial breed; his -women are better; they smell of tallow and wood ashes, and have the -spirit and the health of mares.” - -Anne bought her drawing-pins and decided to go home, but first she -would have a cup of tea, and threading her way past a steam plough with -seven shares, and through a series of galvanized iron cisterns, at -which a group of farmers were gazing with intellectual doubt written on -their faces, she crossed the market place and went into White’s. The -turmoil of the fair had not penetrated inside the confectioner’s shop, -and she would have thought that they had no knowledge of it there if it -were not that a greater primness reigned, and that the very gingerbread -seemed weary of the flesh. Anne sipped her cup of tea with distaste, -asking herself what the young ladies behind the counter would have said -if she had given way to her desires, and they had seen her mounted on -an ostrich.... Did they suffer from such temptations themselves? - -She had almost finished her cup of tea when the door opened and a -little girl came in, followed by a short, thick-set, white-bearded man -of sixty. It was Rachel, her favourite, and her father, Mr. Sotheby. -Rachel smiled, and all Anne’s depression was laid aside; even the tea, -tasting of wet boots, seemed changed by the pleasure of their meeting. - -“Well, Rachel, have you been enjoying yourself at the fair?” she asked, -looking into the pale little face, framed in short dark curls. The -child nodded her head quickly. - -“Yes, Miss Dunnock, thank you very much. I have been on the switchback, -and enjoyed seeing the fair very much.” Rachel’s voice was always a -trifle stilted, her words always polite, and her sentiments always -perfectly correct, but Anne noticed that on this occasion the child’s -usual gaiety was lacking. A few words with the grocer were sufficient -to explain the cause: Mr. Sotheby had brought Rachel into Linton to see -the fair, he had taken her twice on the roundabout, but his business -was waiting for him and must be done, and since he did not think it -suitable to let the child go to the circus alone, he was leaving her at -White’s, where she would keep warm. - -“Come and choose yourself a cake, Rachel,” he said. - -“May I take her to the circus, Mr. Sotheby?” asked Anne. - -There could be no refusal, and the two friends set off at once, Rachel -carrying the cheese-cake she had chosen, in her hand. - -When the time came to meet Mr. Sotheby in the market place the two -girls left the circus, and still under the spell of the wonders they -had seen, it seemed as if they could never express sufficiently their -admiration and their astonishment. The pink horse and the fair rider of -which Maggie had spoken that morning, and the clowns, who had appeared -so suddenly that one might have thought a shower of frogs had fallen -into the ring after a thunderstorm, were discussed in detail, but best -of all they had liked the handsome young man who had stood on his head -on a trapeze, and who, without holding on with his hands, had swung -rapidly from one side of the great roof of the circus to the other. - -Mr. Sotheby was driving out of the inn-yard as they reached the market -place, and Anne was about to say good-bye, when the grocer offered her -a seat in his dog-cart, saying that he would not hear of her walking -back alone. She was grateful for his offer, for she had no great fancy -for the six-mile walk herself, and soon they were all ready, tucked up -in a large rug, with nothing to be seen of Rachel, crouching against -their legs, but the tassel of her woollen cap. Mr. Sotheby flicked -the pony with his whip, and in a few moments they had crossed the old -bridge over the river, and had left Linton behind. - -During the drive home, Anne’s thoughts ran on the young man, dressed -in scarlet tights like Mephistopheles; she could not forget his proud -and serious face, intent only on his trapeze and indifferent to the -audience; she would never forget that unsmiling face, looking up at the -trapeze above him, as he deliberately rubbed first the soles of his -shoes, and then his hands, in a box of sand. - -But she could not speak of the young man, or of the circus, to Mr. -Sotheby, whom she disliked; she could not continue her happy talk with -Rachel in front of him, and they drove in silence--a silence broken at -last by the grocer remarking on the number of foreigners that there -were at the fair. - -“Nothing interests us country folk more than to see a foreigner,” said -he. “A black man will draw a crowd anywhere, and no wonder either, for -however contented we may be with our own lives, we always wish to learn -about those of other people.” - -“He is a foreigner, of course,” Anne was saying to herself. “Perhaps -if I went to the circus again to-morrow I might learn his name, and -whether he is an Italian or a Spaniard,” but she roused herself, for -Mr. Sotheby was still speaking, and then, wondering whether his words -required an answer, she looked about her. - -The risen moon was nearly full: there were no stars, and the road -before them sparkled with frost. “How fast we are driving,” she -reflected. “There is nothing like a frost to make a pony go, and no -doubt he is thinking of his stable.” The sound of the hoofs rang out; -the air was much colder than in the morning, so cold that it hurt her -to breathe. - -“My son Richard is abroad, living in Paris,” said the grocer, and -hearing his voice, Anne told herself that politeness required her to -listen. If she married the trapezist she might live in Paris, too--or -else they would travel from town to town wherever there were circuses. - -“Before that boy was eight years old,” Mr. Sotheby went on, “I knew -that he would have to be a gentleman, and I am proud to say that I -always encouraged him to do what he wanted with his life.” - -She would call him Lorenzo. What did it matter whether Lorenzo was -a gentleman or not? And Anne said this to herself, certain that the -boy who had swung so gracefully on the trapeze was a gentleman. “For -what is gentility but pride and perfect dignity? And he is as proud as -Lucifer.” - -“Everyone says that I spoil Richard,” and the old man beside her -cracked his whip gaily. “But as long as I can make money I shall send -it to him.” - -“I am sure you are quite right,” said Anne. Money! If only she had a -little money! How that would simplify things! - -Mr. Sotheby had needed no encouragement, and went on speaking: “All -these farmers hoard their money, and laugh at me for spending mine, -but I always say that we are both in the right, for they haven’t sons -like my Richard. What good is money to my wife and me?” he asked, -but, without waiting for a reply, continued: “To him it means books, -education, painting in the best studios, and the company of his equals, -for he would not find his equals about here.” - -“Yes, money means all that and more,” thought Anne, but aloud she said: - -“Is Lorenzo a painter, then?” - -“My son Richard? No, he is an artist. I am fond of pictures myself, so -I can understand him. I have seen some by the great men: Rembrandt, -Turner, and Wouverman. There is a fine gallery at Norwich.” - -“I am very fond of pictures, too,” said Anne. “I have always wanted to -try oils; perhaps I shall one day.” - -“I thought at first of sending Richard to Cambridge,” said the grocer, -for he was not interested in Anne’s chances of painting. “But he said -no to it. ‘There’s only one place where I can learn to be an artist,’ -he said. ‘Paris is the only place for that.’” - -Mr. Sotheby shook the reins, and murmured to his pony as they crossed -a little bridge, then he continued: “One hears a great deal about the -wickedness of Paris; several of our ministers have spoken to me about -it, but I console myself with thinking that none of those men would -mind letting their boys go to sea, and there is as much wickedness in -Hull or Swansea as anywhere on earth.” - -Rachel shifted her position under the rug, and suddenly thrusting her -head out, looked about her with curiosity, like a little monkey. - -“Do the sailors believe in the Pope of Rome, father?” she asked in her -precise voice. - -Anne did not listen to the reply. Of course Lorenzo was a Roman -Catholic. Her father would be heartbroken, but she would give up -everything for Lorenzo. Together they would voyage over the roads of -Europe, their horses trotting on through the night, while the van they -were sleeping in rocked gently on its springs. In the early morning -she would wake to find that they were encamped by the side of a -stream; the curling smoke of the wood fire would be rising beneath an -ash tree; and near at hand the piebald horses would be hobbled, and -happily grazing on the dew-soaked grass. She would wander along the -hedge-row, startling a wood pigeon which would rise from the cornfield, -and catching sight of the black and white of a magpie stealing along -the edge of the wood. Soon she would return with her arms full of -dog-roses, and would give one to Lorenzo to wear in his buttonhole; and -in the evening she would see the fragile flower pinned to his breast as -he swung on the trapeze. - -“Scripture tells us,” said Mr. Sotheby, “that children should honour -their parents, but I feel a respect for my son which I never felt for -my father, and which I don’t expect Richard to feel for me. I know -that he works as hard at his painting as I should expect him to work -if he had stayed in the shop, though of course he earns no money by -it. Perhaps he never will, for the qualities necessary are not the -same, and Richard has spoken of men as great as Wouverman, living and -painting in Paris to-day, who cannot sell their pictures. I would -rather that Richard were to become a great master than that he were to -sell a picture for hundreds of guineas, and incur the contempt of such -men. Money is not everything: one need only read one’s Bible to see -that.” - -The pony slackened its speed, and turned a corner; they were back at -Dry Coulter. - -“Steady, boy,” said the grocer, pulling up at the vicarage gate. - -“Thank you very much, Mr. Sotheby,” said Anne. - -“A pleasure, Miss Dunnock; thank you for taking Rachel to the circus.” - -“Good-night, Mr. Sotheby. Good-night Rachel.” - -“Good-night, Miss Dunnock, thank you for your kindness,” came the -child’s voice as the pony darted off impatiently. - -“What a glorious moon,” Anne said to herself. “And what a hard frost! -There will be skating without a doubt.” She would have liked to go -for a long walk to straighten out her tangled feelings, but it was -half-past seven: it was time to lay the table for dinner. - -“Perhaps Lorenzo is married,” she said to herself suddenly. “Then we -can only be friends,” she added as she opened the door. - - - - -FIVE: THE FROST HELD - - -The frost held. On Sunday morning the little boys lingered round the -edges of the Broad Ditch on their way to chapel, and Mr. Dunnock, -hurrying to the vestry, noticed Mr. Lambert’s foxhound puppy running -across the ice. - -“There will be skating,” he said to himself, “and I have not lived -all my life in the fens for nothing. I can still show the younger men -something,” and he decided to ask Anne to cut sandwiches. They would -spend the morrow at Bluntisham:--a long walk, but one which would -repay them with the finest stretch of ice in Huntingdonshire, and at -Bluntisham Mr. Dunnock would see the best figure skaters and be seen by -them. - -After evening service he tapped the barometer, asking himself if it -would be tempting Providence if he were to look at the skates that -evening. There might be a screw missing, a strap needed, or a broken -bootlace, and such little things were best attended to overnight, he -reflected, trying to conceal his eagerness, for he would not be happy -until he had handled his skates. - -“They will be in the box-room,” he said, taking a candle with him from -the hall, but in the box-room many things met his eye which reminded -him of his life at Ely. It had been a wretched subordinate existence, -supporting his wife and daughter on a hundred and twenty pounds a year, -but as he looked back on it such things were forgotten, and it seemed -to him that his life there had been a happy one, for it had been shared -with the woman he loved. Setting down his candle, he turned over the -Japanese screen, which he had always liked for the storks flying across -it, embroidered in silver thread. His wife had intended to re-cover -the screen, for the storks were tarnished, and the silver threads -unravelling, but she had died before she had found a suitable piece of -stuff. “She is in Heaven,” he said mechanically, and was surprised once -again that the words with which he comforted others held no consolation -for him. - -“An old age passed together would have brought a closer understanding -between us,” he said, suddenly speaking his innermost thought, which -he had not admitted to himself before, for the clergyman’s tragedy was -never to have had the conviction of perfect understanding or intimacy, -even with his wife. - -“In the middle years of life we live too much in the affairs of the -day, and a child troubles the mind of its mother. So many burdens to -be borne, so many duties to be fulfilled.... We were too occupied to -look into each other’s hearts, and old age, the sweetest portion of -life if it be filled with harmony, and the happiness of memories shared -in common, old age is reserved for me only; a lonely and miserable old -age. Now that I have lost Mavis, intimacy is impossible with anyone -else, and I feel myself growing far away from everyone, and farthest -of all from Anne. She reminds me too closely of her mother; I find it -painful to be with her and I find her youth as tiresome as she finds my -hasty temper.” - -Mr. Dunnock told himself that such feelings must be controlled, but -he had said that before, and had no faith that the strangeness which -seemed to be growing upon him could be overcome. “Death will release -me, and I must console myself with the hope that Mavis is waiting -for me in Heaven, that she will fold me in her wings, and take me to -herself without a word of reproach. When I hear the birds singing in -the mornings they repeat that promise, and once or twice I have had the -conviction that when I looked out of our bedroom window I should see -angels perched in the branches of the trees.” - -The three pairs of skates lay on a shelf, the blades had been smeared -with vaseline and wrapped in greaseproof paper, but the boots were -dusty, and stretched stiffly over the boxwood trees. - -“Yes, yes, the skates will be all right: there will be nothing amiss -with them,” for they had been greased by _her_ hands; it was _she_ who -had laid them aside after the frost last winter a few weeks before her -death. - -The road to Bluntisham was long, and, as she walked with her father, -Anne thought about bicycles. Her father had once had a bicycle, but -that was many years ago; he appeared to have no wish to possess -another, and Anne had never summoned up sufficient courage to buy -one for herself, though the price of a bicycle was lying idly in the -savings bank at the Post Office. - -“I shall certainly buy a bicycle,” she thought. “It is madness not to -have got one before; a bicycle would give me the freedom for which I -pine; what the horse is to the Arab of the desert, a bicycle is to a -girl in my position. I could ride to Cambridge; in Cambridge I could go -to concerts, and even plays; I could ride to Peterborough.” But she -did not finish her thought, for she was uncertain what Peterborough -would give her. - -“If I had a bicycle I should make friends and instead of wasting my -life like a fool, dreaming about acrobats at a travelling circus, I -should meet Cambridge undergraduates, and receive invitations to play -tennis, or to join in a picnic party on the river.” - -While Anne was thinking of all the changes which would come into her -life when she bought herself a bicycle, her father was enjoying the -exercise of walking. - -“I am a great pedestrian,” he had said to the Bishop, and although he -scarcely ever went outside his house if he could avoid it, the saying -was true, and it was all his daughter could do to keep up with him. - -Bluntisham Church stands as the last outpost over the flooded fen -country; a little beyond, at Earith, is the starting point of the -Bedford Level, which runs for thirty miles to King’s Lynn without a -hedge, or a tree, or even as much as a mole-hill to break the flat -expanse--green all the summer, but under water, or rather under ice -when the Dunnocks approached it. - -The father and daughter had in common a great liking for the fens; they -loved the black peaty earth, the vast level expanse of sodden land, -which looked flatter than the sea, when viewed from the high banks -of a causeway running through it, or the embankments of the Bedford -River raised up above the fields which it drained; they liked even the -squalid villages on each side of the level, the low houses clustering -wherever a hillock projecting into the fenland made it possible for man -to build. But better than the Bedford Level of the present day, they -loved to think of the fens of the past, and of the struggle to reclaim -them which had begun with the war between the Romans and the Iceni, -flitting from islet to islet in their osier coracles, sheltering behind -the willows, and making a night attack on the legionaries posted to -defend the bridge at Huntingdon. - -As they drew near Bluntisham they began to speak of these things, -and Mr. Dunnock soon passed from the invasions of the Danes to the -prosperous farmers who tilled the lands reclaimed by the Romans until -the twelfth or fourteenth century, when the fields relapsed into -fenland, and soon they reached the great days of the seventeenth -century, for, as Mr. Dunnock said, the history of the Commonwealth -is to be found in the Fens of Huntingdonshire, and the Commonwealth -itself may be regarded as a mere episode in the struggle between the -Uplanders and the Lowlanders. - -Although Mr. Dunnock was an Uplander by birth, and a High Churchman, he -was proud of the part that the inhabitants of the swamps had played in -English history. - -“Without the three men of Godmanchester there would have been no Magna -Charta, and if Charles had not tried to drain the Fens, there is little -doubt he would have won the Civil War,” he said, and went on telling -Anne how as a young man Oliver must have made the reflection that his -family had been ruined by the Stuarts, who had encouraged their hopes -and given them nothing. It was a good reason for him to repent of his -loose life, and become more determined a Puritan. Soon he was stirring -up trouble against the church in St. Ives; then his uncle, Sir Thomas -Steward, died, leaving him his heir, and Oliver removed to Ely, but the -temptation to make trouble still persisted, and when one next hears of -him he was giving money to the Fen Dwellers and helping them to resist -the drainage schemes of the King’s Adventurers. - -“Adventurers’ Fen is called after them,” said Anne, and her father -answered that it might well be so, and they stopped for a moment to -look out towards the fen in question. - -“At that time the people in the fens lived by fishing and wild -fowling,” said Mr. Dunnock. “Every week during the winter a train of -waggons left Linton for London loaded with wild duck,” and he continued -his story of how when the King was engaged in reclaiming the fen, the -birds were driven from their nesting grounds, and the great decoys -woven of osiers were being left high and dry, so that the lowlanders -foresaw that they would have to abandon a mode of livelihood which had -endured since the Iceni. They had no desire to plough and reap, and the -drained lands did not prove fertile until a century afterwards, when -the farmers were shown how to dig through the peat and quarry clay to -mix with it, after which it became the most fruitful soil in England. -Oliver Cromwell had taken up their cause, and later, when the Duke of -Manchester was letting victory slip out of the hands of the Parliament, -it was Cromwell who impeached him, and then, seeking an army, turned -for his New Model to the Fens. It was Cromwell who equipped the -Lowlanders, and headed the Eastern Association, and it was the Eastern -Association which had won the Civil War, and so the Cromwells had their -revenge on the Stuarts. But though the lowlanders had been made use of, -the work of drainage went on, and the Ironsides who had been enlisted -to resist the draining of the fens were betrayed by old Ironsides -himself, the Lord Protector. - -But by the time Mr. Dunnock had reached this crowning example of the -perfidy of the figure he so much hated, they had turned the corner -below Bluntisham Church, and saw before them the great expanse of ice -covered with the descendants of Cromwell’s Ironsides. - -The field beside the road was full of motorcars, of farmers’ gigs, -waggonettes, and grazing ponies, and at the entrance stood the farmer -asking a penny from every person who went on the ice. No crop had -ever yielded so handsome a profit as his flooded water-meadows, and -no fenman in Cromwell’s day would have fought more bitterly against a -scheme which would have kept it drained during the winter months. - -The noise of hundreds of pairs of skates on the ice came to their ears -as they entered the field,--a grumbling sound that had within it a note -which rang as clear as a bell, and they sat down to unlace their boots, -refusing the offer of a chair which would mean spending another penny. - -Anne was the first on the ice, and as her father watched her hesitating -strokes the feeling of affection, which the conversation about -Cromwell had aroused, gave place to one of shame and irritation. - -“Am I to be tied to such a limpet all day?” he asked himself as he -had so often asked himself before when skating with his wife; then, -without giving his daughter another look, he hobbled rapidly to the -edge of the ice and was off himself, slipping away as easily as a -swallow that recovers the freedom of its element after beating against -the window-panes. His own strokes were as effortless as the flickering -of a bird’s wing, and it was impossible for the onlookers watching him -to say what kept him in motion. Mr. Dunnock never appeared to strike -off, but leant gracefully forward, lifting a leg slightly to cross -his feet, and, changing his weight from one leg to the other, he flew -lazily across the ice, picking his way without appearing to observe -the existence of the clumsy young farmers who doubled up, and, with -their hands clasped behind their backs, dashed round and round at top -speed on their long fen skates. Soon everyone had noticed the tall -clergyman with his beard tucked under a white woollen muffler, and many -paused to watch as he began figure-skating in the real English style. -Eight after eight was drawn with the slow precision of a sleepy rook -wheeling in the evening sky, before descending in a perfect spiral to -roost on the topmost bough of the high elm, and indeed the black-coated -figure forgot for a few moments that he was an elderly vicar on a -pair of skates, and believed himself to be circling in space among a -vast flock of waterfowl flying over the fens. It seemed to him as if -at intervals a V-shaped band of wild duck flashed past him, each with -its neck craned forward, and beating furiously with its short, clumsy -wings; a flock of curlew was all about him, and would wheel suddenly in -its tracks with a flash of white, then a stray snipe corkscrewed past, -a pair of greedy seagulls chased each other, and two roseate terns -revolved round each other on their nuptial flight.... - -Half an hour had gone by when his dream was interrupted by a young -man with pink cheeks and rather protruding black eyes, who skated up -to him and addressed him by name. It was Mr. Yockney, Dr. Boulder’s -assistant, whose professional duties brought him to Dry Coulter when -there was a birth, or death, but rarely at other times:--the villagers -were uncommonly healthy, and on the rare occasions when they took cold, -or developed inflammation of the lungs, they doctored each other with -gaseous mixture, or turpentine and honey. - -“Ah, so you are here,” said Mr. Dunnock, shaking hands warmly, for -young Yockney had attended Mrs. Dunnock in her last illness, and his -sympathy and tenderness to the dying woman would never be forgotten. - -“Yes, Doctor Boulder gave me the day off. This frost is so healthy we -have no patients left; but it’s an ill-wind that blows nobody any good, -and I would not miss a day’s skating like this for the world.” - -Mr. Dunnock said that Doctor Boulder must write to the Clerk of the -Weather about the deplorably healthy winter. Mr. Yockney laughed, and -then both of them remembered that it must be lunch time. - -“Come, Yockney, you must join us,” said Mr. Dunnock, and Anne, coming -up at that moment, added her invitation, which the young man was glad -enough to accept. - -A line of trestles had been put up on the ice, and crowds were waiting -round the shoemaker’s, and the men who let out skates for hire, -but most popular of all were the sellers of hot potatoes and roast -chestnuts with their buckets of glowing coals. Mr. Yockney purchased -three steaming cups of cocoa, while Anne went to fetch the satchel full -of sandwiches, and in a little while they were sitting on the edge of a -grassy bank. - -“I have been seeing a friend of yours, Miss Dunnock,” said the doctor -after the second sandwich. “Little Rachel Sotheby, and I fear that it -may have been your doing that I had to be called in, for I understand -it was you who took her to the circus. She caught a chill on the way -back. Oh, no, it is nothing in the least serious, though she is rather -delicate.” - -Anne expressed her concern, and hastened to explain to her father how -she had met the Sothebys in the tea-shop, and had taken the little girl -to see the circus. - -“Extraordinary chap that old grocer is,” said Mr. Yockney. “He’d -have been a rich man by now, I fancy, if it had not been for that -good-for-nothing son of his. Just fancy, he told me that he was -spending all his money on making his son a gentleman!” - -This seemed to Mr. Dunnock an excellent joke, and he laughed heartily. -He disliked the grocer for his assurance, and his cheerfulness, and his -nonconformity, and was ready to hear anything to his disadvantage. - -“The great news,” continued Mr. Yockney, “only I expect you know it, is -that the prodigal is expected home next week. He’s been in Paris, and -has been going the pace a bit, I fancy.” - -“Oh, I am so glad,” said Anne with real interest showing in her -voice. “I have heard so much about him from Mr. Sotheby, and I quite -look forward to seeing what he’s like. He sounds quite an interesting -person.” - -A frown gathered on her father’s face. - -“Yes, we are all eager to see him,” said the doctor, and then the -tone of his voice changed so completely that Anne could see that it -was another, and a serious Mr. Yockney who was speaking, although she -observed that his eyes bulged just as much when he was serious as when -he was only talking lightly. - -“If you ask me, Miss Dunnock, I should say that young man is the very -worst type of rotter. Look at the old grocer sweating away at sixty, -look at his mother still serving in the shop, look at his little -sister with patches on the sides of her boots, while Master Richard -is learning to be a _gentleman_ in Paris! There’s no word too bad for -him. I should like him to know what decent people think of that sort of -gentility!” - -“You had better tell him, my dear fellow,” said Mr. Dunnock languidly. -“It would do him a world of good, I’ve no doubt. But I must say it -is probably not the fault of the son but because of the vanity of -the father. Over and over again I have seen a young oaf of that -description produced by a couple of vain and silly parents who ruin -their children’s lives by denying them nothing.” - -“But no decent chap, you must admit....” said Mr. Yockney. - -“You think the son is to blame because you are nearer his age and -imagine yourself in his position,” said Mr. Dunnock with a smile. “But -I, as a father, imagine myself in the position of our excellent grocer. -If I were to bring Anne up to expect luxuries, and to suppose that she -was born to lead an idle, useless existence, it would not be her fault -if she grew up a silly and discontented woman.” - -Even without this argument Anne was feeling decidedly uncomfortable, -and a clumsy piece of gallantry from Mr. Yockney added to her -irritation. - -“Stupid, coarse, hidebound brute! Do your eyes bulge because of your -manly virtue?” she said under her breath, but she had to confess that -there was something in what the doctor had said. She had not noticed -the patches on Rachel’s boots herself, and she felt her respect for Mr. -Yockney as a doctor increasing with her dislike of him as a man. If it -were true, it was disgraceful that Rachel should not have a sound pair -of boots, but it was absurd to object to Mrs. Sotheby serving in the -shop; would she have been happier at a hydro in Harrogate? - -Mr. Dunnock had continued a whimsical description of how he might have -brought up his daughter so that she would have been discontented with -her life; the doctor replied, but finally they agreed that both of the -Sothebys, father and son, were very much to blame, when Anne remarked, -in a voice which trembled, that she was fond of the Sothebys and that -she thought that it was very fine of them to sacrifice themselves in -order to make their son a great artist. - -“I can trust you not to be taken in by the word _gentleman_, Anne, -but I am afraid you may be by the word _artist_. Art, you know, Mr. -Yockney, covers a multitude of sins.” - -“The best definition of art I have ever heard,” said the doctor, “is -that it is the opposite of work.” Mr. Dunnock laughed approvingly, -and Mr. Yockney went on, his eyes bulging more than ever with the -seriousness of his appeal. - -“No, Miss Dunnock, whatever you may say, I know that the kind of -caddish selfishness we have been talking about is absolutely abhorrent -to you, as it is to all decent people. I quite agree with you that -there is something pathetic in the old Sothebys, but there is nothing -to be said for the son.” - -“Well, they seem to be an unusually happy family,” answered Anne, -feeling that she had lost her temper. - -“I am too old to play at Happy Families any longer,” said her father -with a titter. “I shall go back to the ice and leave Mr. Yockney and -you to settle the momentous question of Master Grits the Grocer’s son.” - - - - -SIX: WINGED SEEDS - - -“Why is it?” Anne Dunnock asked herself next day, “that my father can -be pleasant to other people but not to me? Though to be sure I fancied -yesterday that his pleasantness to Mr. Yockney was a trifle vulgar, -while his unpleasantness to me has at all events the merit of being -sincere and well-bred.” And Anne told herself that the only explanation -must be that she was as much a burden to her father as he was to her. -“But only I realize it,” she burst out. “For I am young enough to -recognize the truth, and to welcome it; he does not understand himself -or other people; all his life he has hidden his head in the sand like -an ostrich, and after all what else can one expect of a clergyman?” - -Her anger had lasted since the conversation about the Sothebys, for her -irritation during the lunch beside the ice had been quickly followed by -fatigue, which had intensified her resentment. After the unaccustomed -exercise her ankles seemed to have turned to jelly, and the eight-mile -walk from Bluntisham had been torture to her. - -“Never again,” she said to herself; and when Mr. Lambert had stopped -at the door next morning to offer her a place in his gig (he was going -to Bluntisham for the skating), she had refused, and her father had -accepted in her place. - -“If I want any skating I shall go on the Broad Ditch,” she had said, -a remark which had estranged Mr. Dunnock more than her sullenness the -previous day had done, and he drove off with a hurt look which said: -“You are no daughter of mine to speak of skating in such a way before a -stranger!” - -When the gig was out of sight Anne went indoors to write a letter to -Coventry for a catalogue of bicycles. - -The catalogue came, but though she selected a machine, she hesitated -to post the letter ordering it, and after a week’s indecision she tore -it up, since the thought had come to her that a bicycle would tie her -more firmly than ever to her life with her father, and this life seemed -every day to become less endurable. - -A thaw followed quickly on the second day of skating, and after that -rain and sleet fell for several days. Mr. Dunnock appeared to be -equally disgusted by the weather and by his daughter, and retired to -his study, scarcely a word being exchanged throughout the day except -at breakfast, when Mr. Dunnock always reminded Anne of her duties in -the parish. - -“A bicycle would rivet me to my present life,” said Anne to herself. -“What a chain is to a yard-dog, a bicycle is to the daughter of a -clergyman! A bicycle would give me a certain radius of movement; it -would fill the emptiness of my life; but I want things that no bicycle -can give me. Yes, I want books, music, beautiful clothes, and more -than any of these I want what they stand for: that is, the society of -intelligent men and cultivated women. Such hopes are vain, I know: -I shall never succeed in ‘unwinding the accursed chain’--still I -shall attempt it and the best way to set about it is certainly not by -entangling myself with a bicycle. Even if I had to live in solitude I -should prefer independence, and that I can achieve, for the world is -full of women who earn their own living. Ten pounds is more valuable to -me than a machine with plated rims or a little oil-bath; no one ever -ran away from home on a bicycle, and I shall want all my savings for a -railway ticket and lodgings in London while I look about me.” - -So the letter ordering the bicycle was torn up, and the catalogue -itself cast into the fire, since it was a temptation to the flesh, one -which assailed her particularly in the evenings; the ten pounds was -replaced to her credit in the Savings Bank, and several days were spent -in turning over the best way of earning her living. - -“I shall go away from here, that is clear,” she said. “I have known -that ever since the ploughmen came that snowy morning. Here the -accursed chain can never be unwound, but when I am living a free life, -among new people, and my father is forgotten, I shall escape, and -speaking easily to everyone I shall be accepted by them; I shall love; -I shall be beloved....” Anne shook her head and a shower of hairpins -flew out on to the floor. - -“Damn the elastic stuff!” she cried. “Why do I endure it a moment -longer?” and, tears coming into her eyes, she started up and seized a -pair of scissors out of her workbasket. - -“There will be time enough for that later on,” and the scissors were -dropped as she told herself that she must plan for the future, and not -dissipate her emotions in the present. - -Yet another week was spent in considering how she could earn her -living, and March came in like a lamb before she had arrived at any -practical decision. - -“The birds sing and build their nests, soon they will be laying their -eggs, and then father will be in agonies whenever a young thrush -hops across the lawn, lest it should fall between Pussy’s paws. The -snowdrops are over long ago, the hyacinths have broken through the -ground, their fat buds look like pine-cones. First came the daffodils, -the double ones, and then the single. The peaches are showing their -pink petals on the walls of the dove house, but I remain where I am, I -cannot flower, unfold my petals or spread my wings....” - -When her father spoke to her of the migrant birds flitting northwards -through Africa and Spain and Italy and France, from bush to bush, -twenty yards by twenty yards, to find their way to England’s shores -“where alone they find the happiness of love,” said Mr. Dunnock, “and -where alone they sing,” Anne vowed fiercely that before the last of the -migrants arrived she would be gone herself. - -“The cuckoo will be here in six weeks,” said she to herself. “The -nightingale will be here a week after; I shall stay to hear one but -not the other. Which it will be I cannot tell, for sometimes the -nightingale comes before the cuckoo, and that they say is the luckier. -I hope I shall hear the nightingale before I go and not the cuckoo; it -would be an omen that I should find a true lover waiting for me, and -not a deceiver.” - -The spring pleased her and excited her, and an hour or two was spent -happily searching for the first wild flowers, and gathering the -sweet-scented white violets which grew under the old apple trees, but -meeting her father at lunch and hearing him speak to her of the Sunday -school reminded her of her resolution to leave him, and at that moment -the beauty of the springtime seemed nothing but a reflection of the -weakness of her character. - -“How can I leave him? He is helpless, and I am useful to him. Who will -teach in the Sunday school? Who will keep up the thin pretence that -he cares what happens to his parishioners when I am gone? Without me -who will order his meals, and who will keep a watch on the bacon? The -Pattles will rob him; they will eat him out of house and home.” But -though it seemed that it was impossible for her to leave her father -helpless, and though Anne knew that she loved him, she was soon going -over her old arguments about how a girl can earn her living. - -All her experiences had been no more than to pour out tea, and to -teach in the Sunday school. Other women of her age she knew were able -to be bank clerks, or the secretaries of business men, they worked in -Government offices, they did typewriting, indeed there seemed nothing -that women did not do, but Anne doubted very much whether she could -become a useful person of that kind. She had received what Mr. Dunnock -had called “the education of a lady” (that was no education at all), -she could not add up columns of figures, or use a typewriter, or write -in shorthand. All she could do was to keep the children quiet, to tell -them Bible stories about Balaam’s ass, and Daniel in the den of lions; -she could order the groceries, check the washing, arrange a bowl of -flowers, speak boarding-school French and struggle somehow through a -piece of Schumann--letting the hammer notes sound rather weak as her -fingers tired. - -To earn her living seemed impossible unless she were to succeed with -her fashion plates, or were to exchange one Sunday school for another. -That was always possible, and in another parish she would meet with a -curate who would ask her to marry him, for nowhere could a curate find -a better wife. - -“Better a bicycle than a curate!” she exclaimed. “I would rather cut my -throat than be the wife of a clergyman. Other duties perhaps I might -face, but I have not the courage to work all my life for parishioners -who prefer to go to their own chapels, or to the public-house. It is -the fashion plates or suicide.” - -But then Anne remembered that there were many elderly ladies in the -world whose incomes permitted the keeping of a donkey-carriage, with a -companion to walk beside it. “Why should I not be such a companion?” -she asked. “In the winter her sciatica will require a change of -climate, and we shall go away together to the Riviera, or to Egypt.” -And the rest of the afternoon was spent dreaming of the music she would -be hearing at Rome, of seeing the Sphinx by moonlight and visiting -Tutankhamen’s grave. - -By the evening she had decided to put an advertisement in _The Church -Times_, and at night lay awake repeating to herself the magic words -which would bring her freedom: “A well-educated girl, daughter of a -clergyman, requires situation as companion to a lady of means.” No, -that did not sound well: should she call herself “a respectable girl”? -No, not a respectable girl--that smacked of the kitchen. “A quiet girl, -with an old-fashioned education, desires to become the paid companion -of a lady.” Nothing would do, but nevertheless the advertisement would -have to be sent, and finding sleep impossible, Anne took pen and paper -and wrote first one sentence and then another until she had covered -several sheets. - -Next morning all her efforts seemed vain, but at last she decided on -sending the sentence which seemed to her to be the clearest. “Young -lady, who has enjoyed a religious upbringing, wishes to see the world -as the paid companion of a lady.” There was nothing more required but a -covering letter to the newspaper, and a postal order. - -Anne put on her boots and hurried out into the blustering March wind. -It had broken the first hyacinth, and the daffodils were lying flat on -the earth. How the wind roared! It was pleasant to be out of the house, -for the chimneys had been smoking. The grass on the lawn was lashed -into white streaks by the wind before which the hens ran sideways, like -old ladies crossing the road. There was a thick scum at one side of the -broad ditch, a scum of withered catkins fallen from the black poplars. -Catkins hung like funereal trappings or like black caterpillars on -every twig of the apple trees; on the ditch, the ducks were dancing on -the waves. - -“Such a wind as this scatters the seeds,” said Anne. “The winged fruits -of the elms and the maples are whirled up from the ditches where they -have been lying all the winter, and are carried over the tops of the -tallest trees, and this wind will gather me up like a seed that has -lain too long under the tree from which it fell. Heaven knows where it -will carry me! To Egypt or Greece, maybe, or perhaps only to pull the -rug over the knees of an old lady driving her donkey-cart along the -lanes of an adjoining parish.” - -Under the avenue of elms the wind roared so loud that Anne feared for -the safety of the trees, and stepped cautiously, looking up among the -swaying branches. In her hand she held the precious letter that was to -set her free, the letter which was to her as the wing is to the seed. - -“Once this is posted, there is no turning back,” she thought. “There -will be difficulties, but they will be overcome, and when I look back -on my life I shall say it began on the day when I posted this letter, -and I shall remember the March gale roaring like a lion among the elms.” - -A vision of an elderly lady with soft brown eyes like bees, and short -grey hair, haunted her: a precise lady she would be, perhaps one who -had been an actress or an opera singer in her day, and kept a casket -of love-letters from all the poets of the ’eighties standing on the -table beside her. Her employer would laugh gently at her enthusiasm, -and would tell her wonderful anecdotes. Her name would be beautiful, -and familiar: a name that is to be found in every catalogue of roses, -for she was the kind of lady after whom roses are named. Anne would -take the place of a daughter, and would soon inherit all her passionate -fire tempered by her knowledge of the world, all her deep wisdom born -of experience and of renunciation; all her cynical clear-sighted witty -tenderness.... - -“Good morning, Miss Dunnock.” Anne’s day-dream was interrupted, and -she looked down to find Rachel Sotheby standing before her, her bright -eyes shining, and her cheeks flushed by the wind. Anne was pleased to -see the little girl, and thinking that they must part soon, she bent -down to kiss her, a thing she had not done before. As she did so, she -remembered Mr. Yockney’s remark about Rachel’s boots and glanced at -them. Yes, they were stiff little boots, cracked behind the toe-caps, -worn out, they would let in the water. - -“Mr. Yockney was quite right,” she said to herself, and entering the -Post Office, was embarrassed to find a stranger standing at the counter -writing a telegram. - -“This must be Rachel’s brother,” she thought as she recognized the -foxey nose, and the slit eyes of the photograph she had seen in the -grocer’s parlour. “This must be Richard Sotheby, who has been turned -into a gentleman while his sister has holes in her boots.” - -As Anne asked for her postal order she avoided looking at the young -man of whom she had heard so much, but while she was waiting for -the pen (there was only one in the Post Office with which it was -possible to write) she could not keep her eyes turned away, and when -he had finished his telegram, she had to meet his eye as he handed -her the pen. The action was polite, but though their eyes met for an -instant, she could see that it was mechanical, she had not engaged his -attention, he was thinking of his telegram, and next moment she heard -him spelling it over to Mrs. Day, the post-mistress, and explaining -that it was in French. - -“_The Church Times_....” wrote Anne. - -“G...R...A...N...D...I...S...O...N,” spelt the young man. - -“Barclays Bank and Co.,” wrote Anne, keeping her ears open but failing -to follow the address. - -She had filled in her postal order and had sealed up her letter; there -was no reason to stay longer listening while Mrs. Day repeated the -letters after him, and she went out, posted her letter, and turned -homewards. Already her emotions about her advertisement had subsided, -and as she hurried under the storm-tossed elms her thoughts were -occupied with the grocer’s son and his strange telegram. - -“Je suis las de tes amourettes et de mon amour. Je consens. Ecris.” -What did that mean? And who was the Grandison to whom it was addressed? - -Her meditations were interrupted by Richard Sotheby himself, who passed -her, walking rapidly down the avenue. His hat was jammed hard on his -head: he did not lift it, and directly he had passed she noticed that -he was wearing button boots made of patent leather. - - - - -SEVEN: THE BURNT FARM - - -The March gale continued for several days; the daffodils were broken, -the hyacinths in the border laid low, but one morning Anne awoke to -find that not a breath of wind was stirring in the elms, and after an -hour or so the sun was blazing with the heat of June. On the breakfast -table lay _The Church Times_, and she trembled with emotion when she -saw it in her father’s hands. - -“I must speak to him,” she said to herself, “I must speak to him now,” -but she did not speak, consoling herself for her lack of resolution -with the thought that the earliest answers to her advertisement could -not arrive for two days, since they were to be forwarded from the -office in Fleet Street; she had not given her name and address, but had -used a box number. - -“I will speak to him to-morrow,” she said to herself. “For I would like -to enjoy one day of perfect spring weather before I leave Dry Coulter, -and our conversation is certain to upset us.” - -She waited eagerly until the birds’ breakfast left her free to take -the newspaper into her hands. Her advertisement was in, and reading -the modest three lines Anne felt her heart swell with the triumph of -authorship, and she ran upstairs with _The Church Times_ in her hand to -read the announcement over and over to herself in private. - -“There is no turning back now!” she exclaimed. “I have shown my -independence; I have taken the first step, and nothing now can keep me -from achieving my purpose.” - -Anne’s eyes flashed as she turned to the looking-glass; and the -eager look she met there intoxicated her: at that moment she almost -suffocated with the sense of her own power. The blood rushed to her -head, and she clenched her fists, and ground her teeth in the effort to -remain calm. - -“Have you seen _The Church Times_?” called Mr. Dunnock, coming back -from watching the birds. - -“Here it is, father,” she answered, and running downstairs surrendered -it to him without a tremor. Her father took it absentmindedly, saying -as he did so: - -“I think there is some straw somewhere, my dear. Would you ask Noah to -scatter it about the lawn? It will be useful for the sparrows; the -nearest rick is several hundred yards away, a long journey for them, -almost an impossible one if the wind should veer to the east. On a calm -day like this, it is not so important, but there are not many calm days -in March, and in any case it will save a great deal of trouble.” - -At another moment Anne might have been vexed at her father’s solicitude -for the hated sparrows, but she was in a mood to forgive his follies, -and she ran off at once to the potting-shed to find the straw, and -scattered it on the lawn herself. - -All the morning she was beside herself with excitement; and she found -it hard to answer Maggie sensibly when she spoke of their plan of -whitewashing the scullery. When the proposal had been put forward a -fortnight before by Anne, it had seemed to mark an epoch, but Maggie -found that it was suddenly brushed on one side, her feelings were hurt, -the date was left uncertain, and Anne had fled out into the garden -before she had time to question her again. - -The first tulips were standing stiffly to attention in their field-grey -uniforms, their buds unopened, but the girl could not think of tulips -as she paced up and down the borders. Her life at the vicarage was -coming to an end, and she must speak to her father, but after thinking -over what she would say for an hour, she could find no words, and came -to the conclusion that it would be unwise to open the subject before -she had decided where she was going. Her father would be certain to -raise objections, and they would appear more formidable if her plans -were not fixed. It would be better for both of them if the parting were -to come suddenly. - -“I will go to him in his study,” she said, “when my bag is packed,” and -with this settled in her mind she felt happy for the first time that -morning. She had come out to enjoy the warm spring weather, but, as -soon as she had decided not to speak to her father, and before she had -time to look about her, she saw Maggie waving from the kitchen door and -knew that it was time for lunch. - -After the strain of making plans about her future she found the meal a -pleasant one, emotion had given her an appetite, and, as she ate, Anne -enjoyed listening to her father inveighing against the stupidity of old -Noah. - -“You would scarcely believe it,” said Mr. Dunnock, “but within half an -hour of your having scattered the straw, that old fool was sweeping it -up. I ordered him to stop, but he would not listen to me until I had -taken him by the arm and had explained my reasons. But so blind is the -prejudice of the rustics about here, that he said that he would as soon -poison the sparrows as not. I was forced to speak to him very severely. -It is his first lapse since the question of the strawberry nets last -year.” - -The mild sunlit air was full of bees as Anne left the vicarage after -lunch; the celandines were gaping in the sunlight on the bank above the -Broad Ditch. Wagtails ran round the water’s edge, goldfinches flew up -into the elms, and yellowhammers trotted before her on the road. - -As she passed the Post Office she remembered Richard Sotheby and his -strange telegram, and tired of the turmoil of her own emotion, she -welcomed the memory. “I am tired of thy little love affairs and of my -own love. I consent. Write.” And pondering over these words she asked -herself what kind of creature the Grandison might be to whom they were -addressed. - -A rich woman in Paris, it seemed reasonable to suppose, who had -been his mistress.... “It is to secure her love that little Rachel -is neglected.” Anne wondered what their life had been in Paris, and -slowly a picture of Miss Grandison formed itself clearly in her mind--a -fair woman she must be, with a white skin like the flesh of a hazel -nut, with fair almost colourless hair and light blue eyes, a thick, -slightly aquiline nose.... That certainly was Miss Grandison, and at -the opera she wore diamonds and was wrapped in white fur. On summer -evenings her habit must be to drive with Sotheby out of Paris in her -limousine to have supper in the open air, of lobsters and cream, -raspberries and iced champagne.... As the night drew on she would -become bored, and drag young Sotheby after her to a vast hotel in Paris -where they could dance all night. The men in their starched shirtfronts -would turn pale, and wilt in the small hours of the morning under the -tropical palms, but La Grandison would dance on and on, ruthlessly, -first with one man and then with another. Richard Sotheby would be -forgotten, a young man from the Peruvian Embassy would escort her home, -while Richard, disconsolate and brokenhearted, would be left to pay for -the buckets of iced champagne, and the mounds of uneaten sandwiches.... -No wonder, with such a woman, that he should declare he was weary of -her love affairs and of his love. But there was a hint of jealousy in -his bitterness. - -Anne smiled contentedly. Richard Sotheby’s telegram enabled her to -see her own life with more philosophy. Soon she forgot to think, and -walked slowly onwards, happy in feeling the soft air caress her cheek, -in hearing the chatter of starlings in the orchard trees, in looking -about her in idleness. Ewes lay indolently on the green; their lambs -were already strong on their legs, and she watched the play of the pair -nearest to her, at one moment butting each other, in the next skipping -behind each other, or mounting on one another in amorous curvets and -then, suddenly indifferent, breaking off their play. - -The stream was still swollen, though rain had not fallen for a week. -Anne crossed it by the little bridge beside the water splash, and made -her way across the green, the sheep scattering as she passed. On each -side of the old track that led to the burnt farmhouse, the blackthorn -bushes were in flower. The masses of frail blossom were full of the -humming of bees, but as yet there were no wild flowers in the hedge, -only an occasional celandine shone on the bank like a dropped sovereign. - -The fields on each side were hired by a farmer living at a distance; -they were still cultivated and kept in some sort of repair, but much -had gone to ruin since the farmhouse had been burnt. The hedges had -not been cut for years; there were forest trees in them, and holes big -enough for bullocks to wander through. The great stretch of pasture by -the farm itself, the home meadows where the prize herd of spotted cows -used to be milked in the open, that had gone out of cultivation, and -was full of hawthorn bushes, of the trailing briars of dog-roses and of -brambles. The finest pasture which had yielded the richest butter was -become no more than a covert where the French partridges nested. Of the -farmhouse itself there was nothing left but a few of the walls, heaps -of plaster where the nettles grew in summer, and one or two blackened -beams. The vegetable garden was a wilderness with a quarter of an acre -of horseradish and matted gooseberry bushes buried in convolvulvus. At -one side, on a smooth expanse of turf, stood the old square dove house, -as sound as the day it had been built, and the pigeons came and went as -they had always done, for the dove house was still used as a granary, -and the pigeons were the perquisite of a farmhand. - -As Anne came in front of the house, it seemed strange to her to see -the fine iron gates, with great ilexes on either side of them, and the -flagged path that ran so cleanly up to a mere heap of broken bricks, -where the front door had been. Not a weed had taken root on the -pathway, not a bramble strayed across it, and even the pond, by whose -bricked side it ran, was clear water. Irises grew there and flowered -in the summer time; on the grassy bank opposite there were daffodils -in bloom. Anne let herself in at the iron gates, thinking to herself -that it was very strange that no farmhouse had been rebuilt there on -the site of the old one, that no labourer had been allowed to work -the rich garden as his allotment, and that it was impossible to guess -why everything should have been let go to ruin except the square dove -house of red brick, which must have stood for three centuries and which -looked as if it would stand for as many more. All about there were -the traces of a former fruitfulness, a great walnut overshadowed one -of the ancient yards by the edge of the pond, and on the other side, -hidden in an impenetrable thicket of bullaces, giant pear trees and -plum suckers, laced about with bramble and dog-rose, was the orchard. -The plums were bursting into a fine blow, and Anne wondered whether the -boys came there to rob the fruit, or whether the plums and apples fell -of their own weight, or hung until the wasps had hollowed out the last -of them. She wondered how it was that she had never met anyone by the -Burnt Farm, never a child nor a village labourer. She had not seen it -before in spring, though in the summer it had been a favourite haunt of -hers; and she had gathered roses there late on into the autumn from a -bush which had not yet gone wild. As she walked up the path she smelt a -breath of wood smoke, and turning the corner of the house by what had -been the chimney stack, she saw tongues of flame shooting up, and heard -the crackle of sticks. “A tramp, or perhaps an encampment of gipsies,” -she said to herself, and would have drawn back, but at that instant she -caught sight of Rachel Sotheby coming from the orchard with an armful -of dry sticks. - -“Why, Rachel, are you having a picnic here?” she asked, seeing a kettle -on the fire. - -Rachel came running to her with eyes that shone with excitement; she -had lost her grave look of self-possession, so that it was natural for -Anne to stoop to kiss her for the second time, seduced by her wild look -and her tangled curls. - -“Yes, Miss Dunnock. Do you come here often? I have never been here -before, but my brother brought me. He is sketching the house from the -other side.” - -Anne would have taken her leave on hearing of Richard Sotheby’s -presence, but Rachel would not let her go before she had gathered her -some daffodils from the far side of the pond, and had shown her the -white violets growing under the walnut tree. The kettle had not boiled -when they came back to the fire, and as Richard Sotheby was nowhere to -be seen, she sat down for a little while, talking to the little girl -while she heaped up the sticks and unpacked the basket. A minute passed -when suddenly she heard a step, and, jumping up, saw that Richard -Sotheby was standing a yard or two behind her. He was bare-headed, -frowning, his lips twitching, and seeing Anne at the same moment as she -saw him, he gave his sister rather a puzzled glance. - -“This is my brother Richard,” said Rachel, looking up from blowing the -fire. “Richard, this is Miss Dunnock.” - -The young man’s face broke into smiles at her name, and he held out his -hand. - -“I am very pleased to meet you,” said Anne, taking it. “Now I must be -getting on. Good-bye, Rachel.” - -“Please don’t go,” said the grocer’s son. “I have finished work for -to-day; the light has changed, and I have been wanting to meet you. I -want to ask you all about how your doorstep was ploughed up. I shall -never meet anyone else to whom such a thing has happened, and I want to -know what it felt like.” - -Anne was too much taken aback by this to know what to answer, but just -at that moment they were interrupted by Rachel’s saying that the tea -was made. - -Young Sotheby repeated his invitation, and Anne sat down on a block of -stone which had once supported the corner of a haystack, feeling very -foolish, shy, and ashamed of her shyness, but she was determined that -she would not run away after what he had said. She had blushed crimson -when he had spoken of Plough Monday, but it had pleased her to hear -something spoken of openly about which so much must have been said -behind her back. - -“Yes. Our doorstep was ploughed up,” she said, and her voice sounded to -the others as though she were angry. “Why does it interest you?” - -“It was very wicked of the men to do it,” said Rachel suddenly. “And -you ought not to speak of such a thing to Miss Dunnock, Richard.” - -The grocer’s son laughed at his sister’s indignant interruption. -“Rachel is a great friend of yours, Miss Dunnock. I shall have to -apologize to her, but I hope I have not offended you also.” - -“No. Not at all. I want to talk about it, Rachel,” she said, looking at -the child. The little girl’s mouth was trembling. - -“That don’t matter,” she said, almost crying. “Richard did not ought to -have spoken to you of that thing. Mother told everyone that what they -done was no better than if they were heathens, and that no one was to -say a word about it. No one would have ever but our Richard.” - -Anne took Rachel on to her knees, and hugged the child close; at that -moment she was near to tears herself; for the first time in her life -she understood that she had neighbours who loved her, and did not think -of her only as a queer girl, and the daughter of a queer clergyman. - -“Sit here, close to me,” she said, letting the child go. “And let me -talk to your brother, because he is very clever and is....” It was on -the tip of her tongue to say “a gentleman,” but she altered it to: -“because I am sure he would never be unkind.” - -Rachel looked at him in a way which threatened that if he were unkind -to Miss Dunnock there would be terrible consequences, and Richard -Sotheby poured out the tea in silence, until Anne asked him again why -he was interested in the ploughing up of the doorstep. - -“Because it was, as my mother said, a heathenish act, and I imagine -that, like most heathen things, it must have been beautiful.” - -“Yes, it was beautiful,” replied Anne instantly. “It was so beautiful -that I was fascinated watching it, and though I was crying with shame, -I was glad that they had done it.” - -Richard Sotheby grinned with interest as Anne said this, and nodded his -head several times. - -“Like a rape,” he said under his breath. His words were not meant for -Anne to hear, but she had caught the word, and for some minutes did not -know what to say or where to look, but sat praying with all her soul -that she would not blush. At last the danger passed, and she went on -to speak of the plough wobbling a little as it ran through the earth, -and of the broad, shiny backs of the three chestnut horses, and the -handsome face opposite her quickened with pleasure as she told how it -happened after a fall of snow, and that there was snow on the horses’ -manes and on the carters’ caps. - -When she had described the whole scene, he pressed her for further -details, and soon she found that she was speaking of her feelings after -the event, and that he was listening in silence. She pulled herself up -suddenly, unwilling to tell him so much about herself, and there was -a long silence, for the young man did not press her with questions, -but the silence was broken at last by Anne saying: “But you cannot -understand it unless I were to tell you about my father.” - -“Of course it came about through him in the first place,” said Richard -Sotheby reflectively, and Anne would have begun to speak of her father -and her feelings for him if she had not felt Rachel shiver, and then -she perceived that the sun was sinking low, and that it had grown cold -for sitting out of doors. - -“That is too long a story,” she said, rising to her feet. “You would -not understand it, and if you did, it would bore you. But it is late -now, and I must be going home.” - -“You must promise to tell me another time,” said the grocer’s son. “If -the weather keeps fine I shall be working here every afternoon, until -about half-past three when the light changes. Come and have tea with me -to-morrow and finish your story.” - -Anne promised to come, and then gathering up her flowers and saying -good-bye to Rachel, she hurried off, for young Sotheby had to go back -to his easel and put it away in the dove house, and she had no wish to -be seen walking home with him. - - - - -EIGHT: WILLOW-PATTERN PARIS - - -For several days a gentle wind blew from the west and the cloudiness -of dew-drenched mornings was followed by the sunshine and softness of -the afternoons. Anne Dunnock knew that the grocer’s son was painting -at the Burnt Farm, but though each day she set out in that direction, -she always turned aside on the way, breaking her promise that she would -meet him there again. - -“I spoke to him too freely; Heaven knows what he must think of me!” she -repeated to herself. At moments she found it consoling to remember that -she felt quite sure that she did not like Richard Sotheby, but at other -times it seemed to her that what was so terrible was to have confided -so much of her secret life to a man whom she disliked. But the weather -was too beautiful for her to remain long unhappy for such reasons, and -nearly her whole day was spent out of doors. In the morning she would -busy herself in the garden, and, tempted by the sunshine, Mr. Dunnock -would leave his study to come and stand beside her while she sowed the -sweet peas and the mignonette, or planted out young wallflowers in the -borders. - -“Do not forget to sow teazles by the pond,” he would remind her. “They -are as handsome as hollyhocks, and wherever there have been teazles in -summer time the goldfinches will come in winter.” - -Anne did not regard the teazle as a weed, she loved the plant’s bold -leaves that hold hands about the prickly stem, making a cup to catch -the rain, and the flower-heads with their bands of blue which creep up -and down the inflorescence. - -Few words passed between father and daughter, yet both were happy as -they went together to sow the teazle seed that he had saved, and were -conscious of being in sympathy with one another as they had scarcely -been all the winter. Once there was a rose tree to be transplanted; on -another occasion a rambler which had been blown down had to be nailed -up on the far side of the summer-house, and while Anne shovelled the -earth round the roots, and drove the nails through strips cut from an -old stair carpet, Mr. Dunnock held the tree upright and the creeper in -place, his hands protected in Noah’s hedging gloves. - -“The bees are working in the willows,” he said. “Though it is still -three weeks to Palm Sunday.” - -Yet Anne had not abandoned her plan; it was only that the spring and -the garden full of growing things had claimed her attention. But one -morning she found a letter for her on the breakfast table, and as she -opened it her heart sank, for she guessed that it was from a lady -anxious to engage her as a companion. - -“What am I to say to him?” she asked herself, looking up at her father -as he came into the room, and the morning was spent wandering about -the house, first carrying an old trunk out of the box-room to pack her -things, and then with pale cheeks running to the door of her father’s -study. She did not knock, when she stood trembling outside the door, -though she knew that in a day or two at most, perhaps even in a few -hours, she would be leaving the vicarage. - -During luncheon she came nearest to speaking to her father, but each -time, just as she was going to begin, she was interrupted by some -remark of his. Such a subject could not be opened without preparation, -when her father spoke of the decoration of the church at Easter her -courage failed her, and before she had recovered it, he had shaken the -crumbs off his waistcoat and had gone into his study. - -“I shall have to leave a letter for him to read after I am gone,” said -Anne, but the idea was hateful to her; it revealed her own cowardice -too clearly, and when she began to compose the letter that should be -left behind, she found the task an impossible one. - -“A walk will help me to think things out,” but in the road her -footsteps turned of themselves across the green, and she was half-way -to the Burnt Farm before she stopped suddenly, realizing that she was -going there to lay her difficulties before the grocer’s son. - -“That will be the best way,” she said aloud. “In such a position as -mine, one must seek advice, for it is only when one has been advised by -someone else that one recovers confidence in the sanity of one’s own -opinions.” - -Directly she had passed through the iron gates the sunshine seemed -warmer; it was as hot as June; she could see the daffodils clustering -on the banks of the pond and reflected in its waters; a brimstone -butterfly rose from the flagged pathway and rambled in front of her, -settling at last on one of the brick walls. - -There was a continuous cooing from the top of the dove house, and the -beat of the wings of the pigeons coming and going; a blackbird was -singing in the tangled orchard. - -Rachel Sotheby was nowhere to be seen; there was no fire burning, but -recollecting that Richard Sotheby would be painting on the other side -of the house, Anne walked round into the wild garden. She could not see -him, and soon sat down, putting her arms up to tidy her hair, loosened -by an angry toss of her head, for she was vexed to have come looking -for the young man. - -“Please stay like that,” said a sharp voice behind her, and she looked -round to find Richard Sotheby watching her from inside the ruined walls. - -“Please stay where you are, Miss Dunnock,” he repeated. “You are -exactly what I want in my picture; I knew there was something -needed;--now I see that it is a figure.” - -But Anne jumped up before the sentence was finished, and Richard -Sotheby climbed out of the ruin with his palette in his hand and a -frown on his face, repeating, “Please stay there....” - -He was insistent, and Anne had to agree to sit for a few minutes while -he made a charcoal drawing. - -“When I have finished you shall have tea,” he said as though he were -speaking to a child. Anne sat, looking up at the sky with her hands to -her hair and her elbows up, as he had posed her, saying to herself that -she had never met anyone with such bad manners. - -She was hot with annoyance, but soon the blush left her cheek, and -while she listened to the pigeons her resentment faded away. - -“May I see your picture?” she asked five minutes later, and when the -artist refused, shaking his head and laughing, she felt no irritation. -It seemed natural to her that he should say: “Not till it is finished.” - -“When will that be?” she asked, remembering her own departure. - -“It will take me a week to put in that figure; I don’t know how I shall -do it unless you sit for me. Come, let us have tea.” - -“I am afraid I cannot sit, Mr. Sotheby,” said Anne. “I have come to-day -to say good-bye.” - -The young man opened his eyes at this; his curiosity had to be -satisfied, and soon Anne was telling him that her life was being wasted -at the vicarage, and that she was determined to leave her father. - -Richard Sotheby listened without saying a word; he was kneeling in -front of the little fire he had just lighted. The sticks smouldered -but went out when the paper had burnt away, and she paused in her -story while he fetched a bottle of turpentine from his paint-box. He -sprinkled a little of the spirit, and a thick yellow flame sprang up; -then the sticks crackled. All his attention seemed to be for the fire, -only when she spoke of the advertisement he turned his head sharply to -look at her, and when she told him that an answer had come that morning -he exclaimed: “Extraordinary!” under his breath. - -“But what does your father say to all this?” he asked suddenly, as he -handed her the cup of tea he had poured out. Anne found the confession -of her cowardice was difficult; Sotheby was staring at her as if he -were surprised by her words. - -“I think that would be behaving very heartlessly,” he said when she had -done. He filled the lid of the kettle with tea, blew on it and added: -“It would be a great shock to him, and it seems to me so unnecessary. -Children have parents so much at their mercy; their one duty to them, -surely, is to avoid shattering their illusions. I’m not a good son; -my father is excessively irritating; quite as irritating as yours. I -don’t love him, and that makes me feel ashamed.... You have left it so -late.... Do you really think that getting this place is worth having to -behave so badly?” - -Anne’s face fell, and rather sulkily she pulled the letter she had got -that morning out of her pocket. - -Richard Sotheby glanced at it, wrinkled his nose, and began reading it -aloud: - - “Spion Kop,” - 14A Kimberley Road, - West Sutton Vallance, - London, W.23. - - Dear Madam, - - I have seen your advertisement in _The Church Times_, and think it - possible that you may suit me. I am looking for a companion of gentle - birth who would be willing to undertake light duties in the house. - I have a girl who comes in daily. What I really require is someone - who will, as far as possible, take the place of my own devoted and - dearly-loved daughter who died last year after a long illness, - patiently borne. - - I would introduce you to a pleasant circle of friends, and would look - after you as, I think you will agree, a girl should be looked after - on coming so near London. I cannot offer a high wage, but you will - have every home comfort. Will you please tell me in your answer, - your age, and whether you have been away from home before, and when - you can come up for me to interview you. It is essential that you - should be fond of dogs, but no doubt you are. This neighbourhood is - considered a very healthy one, and the house is next door to the - church. - - Yours faithfully, - ETHEL CROWLINK. - -Each phrase had sounded comic as he read it aloud, and his voice ended -with such a queer note that Anne burst out laughing. - -“You think I oughtn’t to go to her?” she said. - -“It is ridiculous to think of it,” he answered. “Not for your father’s -sake but for your own. It would be out of the frying-pan into the fire: -surely you see that?” - -She did not answer, and he went on: “Why should you choose to live with -the horrid old woman who wrote this letter, in a London suburb? If you -must leave home....” - -“I must....” she said. “Better anything, however horrid it may sound. -If I do not get away from home, I shall never be able to speak to -anyone.” - -There was a long silence while she watched Richard Sotheby wrinkling up -his nose. - -“You may be more unhappy when you can speak, Anne. Particularly if you -should fall in love. That makes one more unhappy than anything else. -However, you would do better to go as an English governess in a French -family. In that way you would see new people and have quite fresh -experiences.” - -And Richard Sotheby began to speak of Paris, while Anne sat fascinated -by the magic flow of words, seeing pictures of a great town full of -avenues and open spaces, with a twisting river, crossed by innumerable -bridges. And for some reason, though she knew that Paris was a huge -city, and though Richard spoke often of the crowds thronging the -boulevards, she imagined Paris as a willow-pattern plate; its bridges -like that steep bridge over which a blue figure is hurrying, with -bald-headed Chinamen fishing in the winding river beside it on which -a barge is floating, a lady is disembarking, and weeping willow trees -border the Elysian fields. - -The voice went on, Anne watching the fine forehead and the abstracted -eyes gazing into the fire, was carried away by her imagination and saw -herself living in the willow-pattern city. - -“That will be wonderful,” she said. “But what am I to say in my letter -to Mrs. Crowlink?” - -She spoke in a tone of such despair that he burst out laughing at her. -“You are a child!” he said, but his voice was too pleasant for her to -take offence, and for the first time she knew the sweetness of being -laughed at without minding it. “I feel sure of his sympathy,” she said -to herself. “Though I came here believing that I disliked him, and even -now I am not sure what I think of him.” - -Richard Sotheby had gathered his brushes together, and was pouring -water from the kettle on to the ashes. - -“You will come and sit to me to-morrow, won’t you?” he asked. “And then -we can go on with our discussion of your future. Come at half-past two, -but now we had better go home separately, otherwise we shall see our -names written up on Lambert’s Barn: ‘Richard Sotheby loves Anne Dunnock -and takes her to the Burnt Farm.’ I wonder if they would put ‘the dirty -dog,’ or ‘bless his heart,’ after my name? It is usually one or the -other.” - -Anne laughed at this, and looked the grocer’s son in the eyes, but his -glance was one of mere amusement. - -“Oh, they would put ‘the dirty dog’ after your name,” she said suddenly. - -“You are quite right,” he said laughing. “Wonderful you should guess.” -He did not offer to shake hands, and she walked away. - -She had read the scrawls chronicling the loves of the village boys and -girls, but she had never thought that it would be possible to speak -of them. As she hurried home her heart was beating fast; she looked -neither to left nor right, but kept repeating to herself: “Richard -Sotheby loves Anne Dunnock, the dirty dog!” “But he doesn’t,” she -added, wondering if she would wish to be loved by him. - -Then she repeated as a variation: “Richard Sotheby doesn’t love Anne -Dunnock, the dirty dog!” That was more like the truth! And she thought -of the telegram she had seen him write, and wondered if he would -tell her about La Grandison. Perhaps one day soon she would see her, -alighting from a barge in the Seine that ran through a willow-pattern -Paris. - -There were no other answers to her advertisement, and as soon as the -lying letter to Mrs. Crowlink had been posted, Anne was free to forget -her problems. The week which followed passed happily enough; every -afternoon she sat for an hour or more in the spring sunlight talking to -Richard Sotheby while he painted her, answering his questions about her -childhood at Ely, describing the poverty in which they had lived, and -how her mother had been looked down upon by the ladies of the cathedral -set, then telling him of her father’s eccentricities, and his violent -temper, and of the last outburst when he had insulted a canon, and had -been sent for by the Bishop, and of how he had been kept to lunch at -the palace and sent away with the words: “I think you will do better by -yourself, Mr. Dunnock. There is a living going begging at Dry Coulter. -A hundred and twenty pounds a year....” - -The pigeons cooed through all the afternoon, the pear tree burst into -flower over her head, and was filled with the hum of hundreds of bees -working among the scarlet stamens, at intervals Anne spoke of her life, -and every now and then Richard would interrupt her with questions -about her father. When she told of his love for the birds, Richard was -delighted, and the rest of the afternoon was spent describing all his -little acts of tenderness and consideration: scattering straw for the -sparrows to build their nests, sowing teazles for the goldfinches.... - -“I see that I should get on much better with your father than you do,” -he said. “We should have a great deal in common.” - -“He has made me hate birds,” said Anne. “Sometimes I think I should -like to wear a bird in my hat.” - -“You feel about birds what I feel about love and about religion, I -suppose,” said Richard. - -“My father has got birds and religion all mixed up, somehow,” said -Anne, but when he asked her to explain, all she could say was: “I don’t -understand it, and I can’t explain it, but I know I am right. It is -difficult to tell often of which he is speaking.” - -“That seems rather a beautiful confusion to me,” said Richard. “Just -listen for a moment to the pigeons in the dove house and you will feel -inclined to it yourself.” - -“I only hate them because I am wicked and selfish,” said Anne. “I am -not going to sacrifice all my life to beautiful things. Father can only -see beauty in a chaffinch or a wagtail; I might be beautiful too, but -he would never notice it.” - -Richard laughed at this outburst. “As pretty as a wagtail,” he mused, -screwing up his eyes, and teasing her. “That is flying rather high, -isn’t it?” - -“I don’t see why a human being shouldn’t be as beautiful as a bird,” -said Anne seriously, at which her companion laughed more than ever. - -“Perhaps not,” he said. “Still you don’t really hope that anyone should -ever say to you: ‘Miss Dunnock, you are as pretty as a hedge-sparrow.’ -I, of course, with my long nose, am rather like a snipe.” Then, -changing his tone, he went on: “You are more like a heron than a -hedge-sparrow: a tall ghostly figure seen by moonlight standing in the -reeds at the water’s edge. The heron’s hair is always flying loose like -yours; he tries in vain to keep it up with fish bones.” - -“I am going to cut all my hair off!” cried Anne savagely. - -“Yes, I think you would look better,” said Richard simply. “But you -must not do that until my picture is finished. Seriously, if you want -admiration, you should come to Paris. You are quite sure to find -someone there who will think you are beautiful.” - -She bit her lip, and asked herself if Richard could have told her more -plainly, to her face, that he did not think so. - -“He does not care for me,” she said to herself as she walked home the -following afternoon, after the last sitting. “Had he cared for me, he -would have said something nice to me when he said good-bye. He is only -amused, and contemptuous. Thank Heaven I did not show him any of my -drawings!” - -For she had taken out her drawing book that morning, to try her hand -at fashion plates, and had sat a long while examining her old careful -sketches of a dead-nettle in flower and a spray of honeysuckle in bud, -only to put them away at last guessing that her work would not make -Richard Sotheby take her any more seriously, though an ambition to earn -her living by drawing clothes was still present in her mind. - -“Yet he likes me, I am sure of that,” she said. “He would not tease me -otherwise.” The thought consoled her, and she crossed the green more -happily. Suddenly she heard a little cry behind her, a sharp note like -the clink of flint on steel, and looking round she saw Rachel. - -“Will you come to tea to-morrow?” the child asked when she had -overtaken her. “It is my birthday and mother told me I might ask anyone -that I liked.” - - - - -NINE: BIRTHDAY TEA - - -Anne sat down to tea on the following afternoon, with the four -Sothebys, round an iced cake with thirteen candles, in the rather -dark little room where she had retired to hide her tears after Plough -Monday, darker now, for it was raining outside. There were chocolate -biscuits in glass dishes and crackers lying on the table between the -plates. But in spite of the air of jollity, and of Rachel’s excitement, -Anne felt just as she had done on the first occasion she had entered -the room: anxious to escape. - -Rachel had met her at the door, they had kissed, and she had given -the little girl a pair of fur-lined slippers as a birthday present, -but immediately afterwards Mrs. Sotheby had begun to introduce her -to Richard and he had no sooner cut his mother short by saying that -they were acquainted already, when the grocer came up and said: “Miss -Dunnock, this is my son Richard of whom I think I have spoken to -you....” - -“Miss Dunnock and I have met,” said Richard, and Anne added: “Richard -and I are old friends already,” but at once became aware that what she -said was the wrong thing, for there was an expression of astonishment, -almost of alarm, possibly even of disapproval, on Mr. Sotheby’s face. -Certainly he seemed nervous as he said: “Well, well, since I find we -are all acquainted let us sit down to tea.” - -The difficulties of the introduction were forgotten in the excitement -of cutting the cake, and it was not long before the last of the -crackers was pulled; a yellow paper crown was found for Mr. Sotheby; -there were paper caps for the rest of the company, and though several -of the mottoes alluded to Christmas, they were read aloud with pleasure -and received with delight. - -“It is too bad, Richard,” said Mr. Sotheby over his third cup of tea. -“You are going away the day after to-morrow, and you have never painted -the portrait of your mother, for which I have asked so often.” - -Anne felt numb on hearing that Richard was going away in two days’ -time: “Why didn’t he tell me that?” she asked herself, but without -noticing her look the grocer went on: “You have spent all your time out -sketching the old manor house, but you have not shown us any of your -work.” - -“He brought it back to-day,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “But I haven’t seen -it.” Richard was reluctant to show his picture, but at last he left -the room, and it was only then, seeing Rachel was trembling, and upset -about something, that Anne suddenly remembered that the Sothebys might -easily recognize the figure of the girl in the foreground, engaged in -doing up her hair. - -Richard lifted an eyebrow at her as he put the canvas on the -mantelpiece, and there was a long silence, a silence which grew -alarming, and Anne knew that she had been recognized. - -“This figure is you, Miss Dunnock,” said the grocer at last, speaking -stiffly. - -“Miss Dunnock came by while I was making tea for Richard,” said Rachel -in her precise tone, and everyone in the room breathed more freely. -“She stayed to tea with us.” - -“And she was good enough to pose for me while I drew a sketch of her to -put into the foreground,” said Richard. - -“It was very kind of you, to be sure,” said his father. - -“I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Richard,” said Mrs. -Sotheby. “Putting Miss Dunnock into your horrid picture like that; you -haven’t done her justice at all. I should scarcely have recognized -her.” And the grocer’s wife gave Anne a little smile to tell her that -she did not mind Richard’s having painted her instead of the portrait -that his father wanted. - -“I should never have sat to him,” said Anne, “if I had known that he -ought to have been painting your portrait,” but Mr. Sotheby was saying -that he had to be off on business. - -“Very, very kind of you to come on Rachel’s birthday,” he said as he -left the room. - -“No, indeed, there is hardly any resemblance at all,” said Mrs. -Sotheby. “Anyone might think it was one of the Puttys come home again.” - -“Who are the Puttys?” asked Anne. - -“What, you don’t mean to say that you have never heard of the Puttys!” -exclaimed Rachel and her mother together, and Richard, who had been -looking glum since he had shown his picture, added: “Yes, you ought to -hear that story, since you are the only other person that has turned -the ploughmen away.” - -“How can you say such a thing, Richard!” said Mrs. Sotheby. “You know -how that came about by mistake,” but Anne asked: - -“Did the Puttys have their doorstep ploughed up?” - -“No, not the Puttys,” was the answer, and as Anne seemed mystified but -eager to hear more Richard said: “Come, mother, tell Miss Dunnock the -whole story from the beginning.” And Rachel also added her request for -the story. - -“Well, wait a moment till I have cleared away the tea-things,” said -Mrs. Sotheby, work that was soon done with both Rachel and Anne -helping. While they were out of the room Richard seized the opportunity -to take his canvas off the mantelpiece. He hid it in the woodshed and -came back feeling happier. - -The chairs were drawn up round the fire, Rachel sitting at Anne’s knee -and holding her hand, and Mrs. Sotheby began: - -“What you children call the ‘Burnt Farm’ is really the ruins of a manor -house; the squire lived there, Captain Purdue, and since the burning -there has been no squire at Dry Coulter. I can remember him very well: -a tall man who had been a captain in the navy, and he certainly thought -a great deal about appearances. One could tell that just by looking at -him; what one could not have told was that he cared a great deal about -money too.” - -“You have forgotten to say that he had been dismissed the service,” -Richard reminded his mother. - -“Well, his ship was wrecked, you know, and he left the navy after that; -I have heard that he was turned out because of it, but I do not really -know,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “Certainly he was a very unlucky man, but at -first all went well; he had a fine house, built in the time of King -Charles II (Oliver’s men had burnt the old house down in the civil -wars), and a wonderful garden (he had a whole greenhouse full of arum -lilies in the winter), his horses were famous, and his dairy cows won -prizes. At that time there was not a gentleman’s place for miles round -that was kept up better. But I should have said that Captain Purdue -was married, to a very good-looking lady indeed. She was a good deal -younger than he was, and I think she came from the Channel Islands. But -they had no children.” - -There was the jangle of the shop bell. Mrs. Sotheby broke off her -sentence and started to her feet, but Rachel had slipped out into the -shop before her, and they could hear a woman saying that she had just -run across for a bar of soap, and then, when she had made her purchase, -ask: “It is your birthday, isn’t it, Rachel? Many happy returns! -How does it feel to be grown up?” and the little girl answer: “Very -pleasant indeed, thank you very much, Mrs. Papworth.” - -“The first of the Captain’s misfortunes,” continued Mrs. Sotheby, “was -that his wife ran away from him, and it was not long after that before -he was killed in an accident. He was having his barn altered; it was -an old building, nearly as old as the house, and he wanted to make it -a couple of feet higher and was having the roof raised on jacks. They -got one side of it up some inches, and then the foreman sent for him to -tell him that it couldn’t be done. The Captain went to see for himself -but he would not listen to anything the men said, but gave the word to -go on with the work, and they had not given the screws on the other -side half a dozen turns before the main beam broke in two and the whole -roof fell in on them. Captain Purdue was standing just underneath, and -was killed, and three of the men were badly injured. You see it was no -one’s fault but his own, and indeed it was very lucky that others were -not killed beside himself.” - -“But how did the house get burnt, and what had the ploughmen to do with -it?” asked Anne. - -“Nothing at all,” answered Mrs. Sotheby with a laugh. “But some of the -most ignorant of the men said that his bad luck was because they had -ploughed the doorstep up. That’s why it was so wrong of them to behave -like that to your father if they really believe what they say. But I -don’t think they do believe such things nowadays: everyone laughs at -them, but I think people will do anything if it is the custom.” - -“So they are expecting us to have bad luck?” asked Anne with her face -suddenly serious. - -Richard looked at her rather maliciously and laughed. - -“Yes, we all expect you to run away from home and your father to fall -out of a tree and break his neck while he is putting a young bird back -into its nest.” - -Richard laughed at this while his mother exclaimed: “How dare you talk -like that, Richard!” - -“He is only being a tease,” said Rachel, looking up at Anne. “I have -got used to it now, and pay no attention to him.” - -“Finish the story, mother,” said Richard, and Anne added her voice to -his. “Please finish the story. I am waiting to hear how the house was -burnt down. Then I shall go home and buy some fire extinguishers.” - -They all laughed at this, and Mrs. Sotheby continued: - -“After Captain Purdue’s death it was nearly a year before the lawyers -could find the heirs to the estate, and when they did find them the -trouble was to know what to do with them. They called themselves Putty, -though the name was really Purdue; the father and mother were dead and -there were two brothers and two sisters. They had lived all their lives -in a tumble-down cottage without proper windows or doors, right out on -the Bedford Level, miles from anywhere. The brothers were labourers, -ditchers. The elder of the two was called Jack: he was the best of the -family but it was difficult to make out what he said. There was no -getting anything out of his brother; he was stone deaf and had a cleft -palate. The girls were very wild, dirty creatures, and not quite right -in the head. When they were sober they were all like wooden images, -and they looked very queer when they first came, in the black clothes -Mr. Stott had bought for them. Well, they moved into the house, and -within a week all the servants left and they were alone there. None of -the gentry round would have anything to do with them; nobody went near -the house except Dr. Boulder and Mr. Noble, who was the vicar here in -those days, and of course Mr. Stott, the lawyer. At first they lived -very quietly, only making a fearful mess of the three rooms they used. -They were afraid that Mr. Stott could turn them out if he had wanted -to, but after they had been there two or three months they grew more -confident. And though they were like images if there were other people -about, there was plenty of noise when they were by themselves and when -they were drunk. Jack used to throw things and his sisters would throw -things back. At first they came to ‘The Red Cow’ for drink, and Jack -used sometimes to wave Captain Purdue’s hunting crop and threaten to -horsewhip anybody who didn’t take his hat off, and one day when he had -got very drunk he stood by the monument on the green and made a speech. -People could hear him bellowing for miles round, but no one could make -out much of what he said except that he was the squire, and that he -ought to have been told before, and that he would never be rough with -anybody. - -“One day when he was in ‘The Red Cow’ one of the men asked him how it -was that he didn’t like port wine. That was the first Jack had heard -of Captain Purdue’s cellar, for, would you believe it, the Puttys had -never been all over the house, and the cellar being locked up they had -not troubled to break it open. After they found the wine nothing was -seen of them for more than a week and then, one night, we were all -woken up with the news that the manor house had caught fire. Everyone -in the village turned out to help and the fire engine was fetched from -Linton, but it came too late to be any use. The whole house was ablaze -when we got there; the dairy and stables too, for they were touching -the house. The men had made a line from the pond and were passing -buckets, but it did no good, for the rooms were very old-fashioned and -all the panelling had caught alight by that time, and the staircase -too. The flames made it as light as day.” - -“What about the Puttys?” asked Anne. - -“Well, that was a very dreadful story. Jack Putty had just broken his -way out of the house when we got there, but the two girls and the -deaf brother were still inside. One of the Peck boys, who went to Wet -Coulter afterwards as a ploughman, got out both of the girls, but they -were terribly burned, and the brother lost his life. Jack Putty did not -seem to understand what was happening at first, but when the fire had -taken hold of everything he missed his brother, and then he ran back -into the house to find him. He came out again with his clothes alight -and jumped into the pond, and then, when he got out, he ran back into -the fire again. It was dreadful to see that. He got out alive a second -time, and would have gone in a third time, but everyone could see it -was no use, and they prevented him; it took four men to hold him. Poor -fellow, his feet were terribly burned, but he didn’t seem to mind -that, but kept crying out that he must save his brother. - -“After that they were all taken to the hospital, and there they found -out that the girls were not fit to be about, so they were sent to an -asylum for the imbecile. They have been there ever since, but Jack -Putty seemed a different man after that. He went out to Australia; Mr. -Stott sends him his rent regularly, and Jack sent him word when he got -married. The property still belongs to him, of course, and that is how -it is that the manor house has never been rebuilt.” - -There was a silence in the little parlour, while they turned the story -over in their minds. Mrs. Sotheby began to poke up the fire in the -grate, and the flames shot up; they had been sitting almost in the dark. - -“A wonderful story,” said Richard. “I often think of Jack Putty as a -model: a man who was really able to love his brother as himself. That -is the only sort of love, love which will sacrifice everything, put up -with everything, yet ask for nothing in return. Selfish love is misery, -I suppose it deserves to be, but how does one avoid it?” - -“Why do you think Jack Putty felt unselfish love?” Anne asked, feeling -rather puzzled. - -“You don’t think he tried to go back into the fire for the third time -because it was gentlemanly, do you? though I’ve no doubt he really was -a gentleman,” answered Richard. - -“You would not have thought Jack Putty was a gentleman if you had seen -him,” said his mother. - -“I daresay not, but I should have been wrong ... he was fearless, and -he was independent,” said Richard. - -“He certainly was not a biddable man,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “But that was -the only thing he had in common with his second cousin, Captain Purdue.” - -“The Peck boy went in once, to rescue the two girls, but I should -not have gone in at all. I don’t think I should go into a burning -house even if you or Rachel were inside it. I’m sure if Ginette ... -Grandison.... But it’s not a proof of love at all; some people will -risk their lives to save a kitten.” He muttered something else, but the -others could not catch it. - -“I must be going,” said Anne, getting up. “Gracious me, it is past six -o’clock.” And thanking Mrs. Sotheby for her story and kissing Rachel, -she hurried back through the rain to the vicarage to prepare supper. - - - - -TEN: NO GOOD-BYES - - -It was morning before Anne could find any sleep, and the hours she -spent lying in the darkness with her eyes open, or sometimes standing -at her bedroom window gazing out at the pale lawn and the moony spaces -of the orchard beyond, listening to the whispering notes of the little -owls, and to the weather-vane on the dove house, whimpering as it -swung in the wind: those hours were remembered afterwards as the most -miserable of her life. - -“What have I done?” she asked herself, but she could find nothing in -her own conduct to explain Richard’s behaviour. “If he regarded me with -even the interest of a casual acquaintance he must have told me of his -departure. He would have said something, surely. Even if he hates me he -would have spoken of when he was going away.” - -But Richard had not mentioned it, and had it not been for a chance -remark of Mr. Sotheby’s she would have known nothing of the matter. “He -must have intended to hide it from me,” she said, wondering why it -should be hidden and asking herself if it was because he was afraid of -telling her, or because he had fancied that she was in love with him. - -“No, he has no such thoughts,” she assured herself. “It is because of -his complete indifference to me. His whole mind is occupied by Ginette -Grandison.” And suddenly, a new thought striking her, she said aloud -and almost joyfully: “Who knows what unhappiness she may be causing -him?” The thought of Richard’s pain was a comfort to her, and she -wondered once more what the woman could be like who had so enslaved him. - -“I seem sometimes in my thoughts to assume that I am in love with -Richard myself,” she said to herself with surprise. “But indeed I don’t -love him. He is hateful; when I am with him I know well enough that we -could never by any chance love each other. He is as sharp as his own -nose; he has no feelings that I can understand. But yet I am fond of -him, for he is the first man to whom I have been able to speak freely, -the first man. How I long to live in a world of such men. To live in -Paris.” - -Presently her thoughts turned from Richard and his cruel behaviour, to -think of her own life and what it would become. - -“I should have escaped from here by now had it not been for him,” she -said bitterly, and then, recollecting that there had been no more -answers to her advertisement, she wondered if she would ever have -another opportunity. “If I have the courage to advertise again,” she -added, for even that seemed doubtful to her at that hour. - -“Damn the fellow,” she said at last. “He has disturbed my life to no -purpose, he has raised a hundred questions he cannot answer; I should -have been happier if I had never seen him.” - -And it seemed to her that every fresh experience in life would always -bring her such regrets; that all struggles were only destined to make -her suffer, and that the best course perhaps was to go through life -blindly, living from day to day, immersed in a world of dreams like her -father, and like him shunning all contact with her fellow creatures. -These thoughts were dreadful to her, for the afternoons she had passed -sitting at the Burnt Farm talking to Richard Sotheby while he painted -her were precious. “The happiest moments in my life,” she cried. “For I -thought then that I had found a friend.” - -Yet it was true: she would have been happier if she had never met him. - -“I am not jealous,” she exclaimed. “I know he is in love with Ginette -Grandison; I have always known it, and it has never given me a -moment’s pang of jealousy. If only he had spoken of her, if he had told -me he was going back to her, I should have felt happy for his sake. I -should not have had a single selfish thought. - -“But he has made me lay bare my whole life to him and has never once -spoken of his own. I only know of the existence of Ginette Grandison by -an accident; he would not trust me with his secret and would be annoyed -at my knowing it. No friendship can be based on anything so one-sided -as our conversations have been. And the reason is plain, only that I -have been too stupid to see it before. The reason is that he never -intended a friendship. It amused him to get my little secret from me; -it flattered his....” - -But Anne suddenly checked her thought, crying: “No, that is vulgar, -that is unworthy. The root of the matter is that I mean nothing to -him, nothing, whilst to me he is the only man with whom I have spoken -freely; the only intimate friend except Enid that I have ever had. And -he cares no more for me than she did.” - -A flood of tears eased her heart; she turned her face to the pillow; -then, when she had done weeping, she got out of bed once more and went -to the window. The air was cold; there was a gust of wind in the -chimney; the weather-cock gave its gentle whine. - -After standing there an hour, Anne went back to bed again with a -picture of the darkness in her mind, saying to herself: “And so on for -ever and ever, cold and darkness after the sunshine and the warmth of -the day.” - -Next morning Anne felt ill when she woke; her head ached, she was -dizzy, and the outer world was seen alternately as a whirling mist and -defined with extraordinary clearness. She got up from habit, but she -could eat nothing at breakfast, and as soon as her bed had been made -she undressed and lay down on it, and fell asleep. - -When she awoke it was with the echo of Richard’s voice ringing in her -ears; she scrambled out of bed and went at once to her window. There -was nothing to be seen, she blinked her eyes in the brilliant sunlight -and, reeling with sleep, groped her way back through the sudden -darkness of the room to her bed to fall into a doze from which she -awoke once more, this time with the certainty of having heard voices: -beyond a doubt, one of them was Richard’s. - -The voices rose for a moment; then she heard the front door slam, in a -gust of wind, and there was a silence. She understood suddenly that -Richard had been in the house, that he had come to see her, and she got -out of bed. - -The bedroom window gave on to the garden, so she ran to her father’s -room just as she had done to see the ploughmen on that snowy winter -morning. Her guess had been right, for there almost directly beneath -her were Richard and her father; they were standing bare-headed in the -rain talking amicably; she could hear her father’s gentle laugh; they -were reluctant to part. Anne’s first instinct was to call out; to ask -Richard to wait while she exchanged her dressing-gown for clothes in -which she could appear, but she realized that it was impossible to -do so, and then, with the angry feelings that every sick person has -experienced of knowing that life is going on unchanged behind his back, -she was forced to watch Richard disappear after shaking hands with her -father by the garden gate. - -“A thousand pities,” she said to herself. “He must have come to see me. -What can he have said to my father?” Her headache and dizziness were -gone, she felt eager and excited, and the moments while she was putting -on her clothes and doing up her hair were spent in trying to imagine -the conversation that had been going on while she was asleep. - -“What an extraordinary thing,” said Anne, “that he should think of -calling! Nobody but Richard would have done such a thing!” Her thoughts -were interrupted by Maggie coming to ask her if she would like to have -tea in bed. As she was going downstairs it occurred to her that Richard -might have spoken of her; he would have told her father that they had -met; he might even have mentioned his picture. As she opened the door -into the room where her father was already sitting, she remembered -the well-brought-up heroes in Victorian novels who ask a father’s -permission before entering into correspondence with the girl they have -rescued when the pony has taken the bit between its teeth and the -governess cart is heading for the side of the quarry ... a memory which -was driven away with a laugh, but which left her anxious and expectant -as she took her place at the tea table. - -Mr. Dunnock did not make any reference to his visitor, though he -was less abstracted than usual, asking Anne with great solicitude -about her headache, and then saying: “I have been feeling a little -more melancholy than usual to-day because of the bad weather, and -so I took down Burton. In his anatomy he has much to say about the -effect of food. The authorities all agree that beef is only safe for -those who lead an active life; that pork is definitely bad for the -reasoning man; that goats’ flesh disposes those who partake of it to -evil-living; venison is most strongly condemned, and even horse-flesh -is held to account for the well-known melancholy of your Spaniard; -among vegetables the onion and its congeners, and I am glad to say the -cabbage, are absolutely condemned; peas and beans should be avoided -as far as possible, and salads and fruit only taken in the strictest -moderation. Burton thinks that the potato may be a safe article of -diet, and highly recommends borage.” - -Anne was smiling at her father’s enthusiasm. “There seems very little -for you to eat,” she said. - -“Well, Anne, I do not know quite what Burton would recommend; he says -nothing against wheaten bread; he regards fresh country cheese as -wholesome, and speaks with enthusiasm of beer.” Mr. Dunnock giggled as -he said this and for some reason that familiar clerical sound seemed -to his daughter at that moment to express all that she most hated and -despised. “The giggle is unforgivable,” she said to herself gazing -at her father over the tea table. “He is a grown-up man; he has a -beard; he is my father, but if beer is mentioned one hears a silly -adolescent giggle. One would think that he was a choir boy caught with -a cigarette.” - -She left the table and went out into the garden in a fury; she had -forgotten her own embarrassment when Richard had used the word “rape.” - -Mr. Dunnock, absorbed in his own thoughts, hardly looked after her. - -“Beer,” he said, pouring himself out a fourth cup of tea, and giggling -slightly. “Good stuff, beer. He thought that because his name was -Burton,” and Mr. Dunnock began to wonder if Robert Burton had really -come from Burton-on-Trent, and if beer had always been brewed there. - -“I forgot to tell you,” he said to Anne at supper, “that I had a visit -this afternoon from Richard Sotheby, the son of our grocer. It was a -great pity that you had a headache, for we do not have many interesting -visitors. I think he is charming: a most delightful, most intelligent -young man. But you should have told me that you had met him; you should -have asked him to tea, and have introduced him to me. It was too bad, -Anne, to have kept him to yourself.” - -Anne gasped with astonishment and, not knowing what to reply, waited -until her father went on: “He seems to have liked you very much; you -have made quite a conquest,” and Mr. Dunnock smiled his peculiar little -smile which showed that he was not speaking seriously. - -“I thought you rather disapproved of the Sothebys,” said Anne. -“Because, of course, they are Nonconformists.” - -“Well, well,” said her father, wrinkling up his face at the word, for -it set his teeth on edge like the thought of sour fruit. “Well, well, I -suppose they are happy with their little ugly worship; I confess their -outlook is repugnant to me. But the son has escaped from all that. He -told me he has been to visit Little Gidding, and asked me a number of -questions about Nicholas Ferrar’s community. Apparently he is greatly -interested in the antiquities of the county.” - -Anne had known Little Gidding all her life, and she shared her father’s -love for the lonely little church perched on the edge of the hillside, -with the slope of green sward below and the woods behind. She had been -brought up to revere Nicholas Ferrar, and had loved to reconstruct a -life which had so much of the beauty of religion in it, and nothing -of what she disliked. Often she thought that she would have been -content for her father to have been a clergyman if he had lived in the -seventeenth century, or even in the eighteenth for the matter of that, -for it was only during the reign of Queen Victoria that the clergy in -England lost touch with the community and became self-conscious. Anne -knew how much happier her father would have been had he belonged to -Nicholas Ferrar’s household, and though she would not have cared for -it herself (she would have disliked rising at four o’clock for prayers -every morning) she wished he could live in such a way himself. Thus for -once she was tolerant, for she loved Little Gidding, and had prayed in -the narrow little church with an outburst of religious passion such as -she had never experienced in Ely Cathedral. - -For the rest of that evening father and daughter spoke of Little -Gidding, calling up pictures in each other’s minds of how it must be -looking in the spring weather, and of the life of the immense and -extraordinary household which had lived there until the Roundheads had -burned the roof over their heads and had thrown the brass eagle lectern -in the church into the pond below. - -“The men slept in one wing of the house and the women in the other,” -Anne remembered. “And Nicholas Ferrar slept watchfully in the middle. -That is the funny side,” but she hid her thought from her father, and -when she spoke it was to remind him of the immense number of children -in the community. - -“His daughter brought her eleven children; there were thirty people -altogether,” said her father, and he passed on to describe the three -visits of King Charles I, and so vivid were his words that Anne could -picture to herself, more clearly than ever before, the visit the King -paid during the civil war when he came toiling up the hill on foot, and -alone, to pray. - -“There is no more sacred spot in England,” said Mr. Dunnock, and Anne -was inclined to agree with him. That night she lay for some time -without sleeping, giving herself up to the happiest thoughts, and -when at last she dozed off it was with the picture of Richard Sotheby -in her mind: Richard walking over the greenest turf where the manor -house had stood, resting on the sides of the dry grassy moat, and then -walking down by the edge of the wood to the little church with Nicholas -Ferrar’s tomb in the pathway leading up to it, under a tombstone, the -letters of which are written in moss. A tall figure came toiling up the -hill to meet him; she saw a tired man with a pale face--King Charles -the First, and try how she would to dream of Richard Sotheby, King -Charles would reappear. - -“I shall certainly try to see Richard before he goes this morning,” -Anne thought at breakfast. “I shall look in and tell Mrs. Sotheby that -I have come to say good-bye.” - -But when the time came she went past the shop, for she remembered Mr. -Sotheby’s look of surprise when he found that she was acquainted with -his son, and the long hostile silence before he spoke, after he had -recognized her in the painting. - -“Mr. Sotheby does not approve of my knowing Richard,” Anne said to -herself, glancing through the windows of the shop. She could see no -one inside, and the longer she meditated over the grocer’s behaviour -at Rachel’s birthday party, the more convinced she became that he was -jealous of her, and alarmed lest an attachment should spring up between -his son and her. - -“I will go for a stroll on the green,” and looking about her she saw -for the first time that the sun was shining, and that the grass was -greener after the rain of the day before. “Why, the hawthorns have come -into leaf; the horse-chestnut buds are bursting; in a few days the -apples will be in blossom,” but the daily progress of the spring, which -would ordinarily have given her such keen pleasure, was meaningless -now. “I must see Richard before he goes,” she said in desperation. -“I must arrange with him about finding me work in Paris,” and she -remembered with dismay that she did not even know his address. - -Soon she turned back on her footsteps, and fully an hour was spent in -passing and repassing the grocer’s shop. - -“I am wasting my time,” she thought. “For Easter is nearly upon us; -there is much to do at the church.” But it was not possible to go -home after waiting so long, and at last she set off along the road to -Linton. A mile was covered before it occurred to her that Richard would -be driving with his father, and that even if Mr. Sotheby should pull up -it would be difficult for them to speak in front of him, and she turned -back and walked to the village at top speed. - -All seemed well, for she had not passed them on the road, and she -determined once more to enter the shop, but it occurred to her, as she -approached, that Rachel would be coming out of school in a few minutes: -it was just twelve o’clock. - -As she turned the corner by the schoolhouse, she noticed the strange -ring deeply cut into the earth and full of dust, and wondered again -what game the children played there. - -Soon the door opened and the children began to run out. “In this riot I -shall not be able to speak to Rachel,” Anne said to herself. “But if I -walk back towards the shop she may walk another way.” - -“A lovely morning, Miss Dunnock,” said a voice behind her, and she -turned to find Mr. Lambert. - -The moments spent talking to him were agonizing, for every instant -she expected to see Rachel run past her, but Mr. Lambert would not be -hurried. Soon he began to speak of Easter, and the arrangements at the -church, for he was a churchwarden, and when that subject was exhausted -he returned to the weather. - -“One is happy to be alive on such a morning, Miss Dunnock; I envy you -your leisure to enjoy it. Free as air, Miss Dunnock, and no one to call -your master. Work is my master. This weather keeps us very busy.” - -“Impertinent puppy,” said Anne to herself, though as a matter of fact -she rather liked Mr. Lambert, and saw nothing impertinent in his -manners. - -At the very moment when Mr. Lambert released her she heard Rachel’s -voice saying: “Good morning, Miss Dunnock,” and the little girl ran by -her with two or three other children. Anne saw that it was useless to -wait any longer, and returned to the vicarage; there was nothing to be -angry about, nobody was at fault. - -“There was this note left for you. Rachel Sotheby brought it over,” -said Maggie when she went into the kitchen, and Anne thought the -girl’s grin was an impertinence too. - -Richard had gone by the early morning train. “I am so sorry not to see -you to say good-bye,” he wrote. “You must not forget your promise to -write, and remember to tell me all the news of the parish.” He enclosed -his address. - - - - -ELEVEN: BEFORE THE SWALLOW DARES - - -Easter was over, but the church at Dry Coulter was still full of the -scent of flowers mingled with the odour of their corruption. A necklace -of decayed marsh-mallows hung forlornly round the neck of the eagle; -its brazen beak held a bunch of wilted cowslips, but the daffodils and -narcissus on the altar still breathed out their perfume. Easter was -over, and Mr. Dunnock heaved a sigh of relief for he had come to feel -the church festivals a great strain upon him. - -Easter was over; Mrs. Pattle marched up the aisle on her flat feet and -began tearing down the flowers which her children had gathered three -days before. - -Mr. Dunnock walked by the little pathway from the vestry to his wife’s -grave, and stood there looking at the headstone. He stayed there so -long and stood so still that a robin, recognizing a friend in him, came -to perch on his shoulder. - -“The resurrection of the flesh has come to pass,” Mr. Dunnock said -aloud. “These ones come to me and they commune with me; why does she -alone delay?” - -At last a cow lowing on the other side of the hedge, interrupted the -clergyman’s reverie; he started slightly and coming to himself began -to pull his beard with a gesture of despair, and the robin, who had -been wondering if he could induce his wife to nest in it, flew off to a -tombstone, disappointed. - -“I live in two worlds,” Mr. Dunnock reflected. “Only the saints know -how terrible the strain of such an experience can be. I cannot bear -it much longer; something will break in me. My head aches when I am -recalled from the contemplation of so much glory to the pettiness in -which men live, their eyes on the ground and their ears stopped to -the voices of the angels. I cannot endure it any longer; it would be -better, I think, if I were to live alone.” He clutched at his head -suddenly, and then walked rapidly from the churchyard towards the -vicarage. But the song of a willow wren caught his ear as he passed -under the elms, and he paused to listen. The clear top note was -followed by a stream of softer sounds and ended with a cadence of lower -notes, a touch of melancholy in which the vicar felt his own heart -expressed. The bird sang, and sang again, and Mr. Dunnock, resting his -shoulder against the rough bark of an elm, listened without seeing the -approach of two village women, or noticing their inquisitive glances -as they passed near him, or hearing their words, for, in answer to a -nudge, one of them had protested to her companion: “Oh, dear me, Fanny. -Don’t.” - -They were silent for fear of laughing, but when they had passed the -vicar, one of them said: “Maggie told me she couldn’t make anything of -his sermon on Easter Sunday. It was all about Easter Eggs being the -promise of glory. She didn’t know what he meant by it.” - -But the women did not laugh, and soon turned to safer and more -interesting topics of conversation. - -The willow wren had been silent a long while, and was looking for -worms, when at last for Mr. Dunnock also the mood of ecstasy passed; -he looked about him startled and bewildered, and then, reassured by -finding he was alone, he shook his head sadly, and the first glance of -fear was replaced by a bitter smile as he hurried back to the vicarage -at top speed. - -“Lay my meals on a tray in future,” he said to Maggie a few minutes -later. “And put the tray on the table in the passage outside my study. -I shall hear if you tap on the door.” Words which were repeated to -Anne when she came down to lunch. She was content to be alone, but at -dinner she was disturbed at this alteration in her father’s habits, -wondering whether he were unwell, or whether by any chance Maggie were -right in believing that he wished the change to be permanent. But this -seemed to her so unlikely a possibility that she did not dwell on it, -and, when the meal was over, she lit the lamp and settled down with -her drawing-board in front of her; she had at last begun the fashion -plates which she had been projecting all the winter. The fine weather -had returned after Richard Sotheby’s departure, and for the first day -of warm sunshine Anne had found happiness enough in being out of doors, -a happiness shot through with irritation against herself. - -“I am wasting my life looking at this pear blossom. What does it -matter to me whether the fruit set or not? I shall be gone before the -gathering.” But her habitual interest had been too strong for her, and -she had watched the bees flying in and out among the masses of curdy -petals with delight. - -“I am lingering on. I shall linger all my life. I must go now; I must -leave home to-day.” - -But it was impossible to leave on the day before Easter, and instead -of packing her box, she had gone to the church to pin up the notice -saying: “There will be no service on Saturday, when the church will be -open for decoration.” - -When Saturday had come she had gone herself to help the little girls, -and it was not until after Easter was over that the fashion plates had -been begun. The results of her labours surpassed Anne’s expectations; -such fashion plates as hers she felt sure would excite the Parisian -dressmakers. - -“I must send them to Richard at once,” she said as she took out the -drawing-pins. But the thought of waiting for a letter, and the agony -of uncertainty in which she saw herself, dismayed her. In her mood of -exultation delay of any kind seemed impossible. - -“But I will wait all the same,” she said, “until I have finished a -dozen, and then I shall go to Paris myself to seek my fortune. I will -write and tell Richard that I am coming.” - -The letter was put off; she would not write until she knew the day and -the hour of her arrival, and for several days she worked hard, shutting -herself up in her room every morning when the bed had been made. When -she laid down her brush it was to plan how she would have her hair cut -off in London, and how she would buy herself a smart dress for the -journey, for she believed that she would never impress a dressmaker in -such rags as she possessed. With her mind full of such matters, Anne -rose and looked out of her window; the first blush of pink petals was -showing through the early green of the apple trees; in another week -they would be in full blossom. Under the trees Mr. Dunnock was standing -with his arms raised above his head, gazing up at the sky, a pose which -Anne found sufficiently startling to make her look again, carefully -screening her eyes from the sunlight. Her father stood motionless; -every little while she could see a small bird fly up and settle on his -shoulder. - -“I have scarcely spoken to father for three days; I must speak to him -now and tell him of my plans,” and as she made this resolution, she -saw him moving slowly across the lawn. As he came nearer she saw that -a crowd of little birds was following him, a wild twittering came from -them, they were mobbing him as though he were a cat or an owl; at every -moment birds would settle on his head or shoulders, or on his up-raised -hands, and then would fly off again. - -A beautiful spectacle it seemed to Anne, and she felt a new tenderness -for her father as she watched. The thin black figure with the head -thrown back, the eyes turned up, and the beard jutting out, no longer -seemed queer as it had a moment before, when she had first caught -sight of it standing under the apple trees. - -“He will feel my desertion,” she murmured, a sudden sympathy with her -father coming to her, and she felt a love which had been forgotten for -many months. - -“First mother, and then me,” she said. But her love did not weaken her -determination to speak to him of her departure, but strengthened it. - -When Mr. Dunnock reached the house, he shook his head, first gently, -but then, as a blue-tit still remained perched there, more violently, -and then turning round waved his hands towards the birds which had -settled in the rose bushes about the door. Anne saw that he was -bestowing a benediction. She did not wait longer, but hurrying -downstairs, followed her father into his study. - -“We see very little of each other now, father,” she said. - -Mr. Dunnock started at her words and looked round at her with guilty -eyes. - -“Yes, Anne, yes,” he murmured. “Do you wish to speak to me? Something -perhaps about the housekeeping?” and he began to fidget with his -fingers, wishing that she would go away. - -“I have wanted to speak to you for some time,” said Anne. “I have been -thinking a great deal about my own life. It will seem very selfish to -you, and very heartless. It is very selfish....” - -“We are all of us selfish,” said Mr. Dunnock. “What is it that you -want?” - -“I want to go away, at least for a time,” said Anne. “I do not want to -settle down for the rest of my life without seeing something of the -world. I have never been to London.” - -There was a silence, and after a little she went on: “I shall have to -earn my own living, of course, but that should not be impossible. An -experiment ... an experience ... the experience would be good for me. I -have never been to London. There are so many things.” - -“That seems a very sensible plan, if it can be managed,” said Mr. -Dunnock, cutting her short. “But then you have plenty of good sense, -Anne, more than I have in some ways.” - -He sat down suddenly at his writing table, dropping his head between -his hands, and there he remained, silent for so long that Anne began to -wonder if he had forgotten her, but she said nothing, only repeating -under her breath: “It is settled: I am leaving home.” - -But at last Mr. Dunnock looked up, saying: “Let me see.... What was -I going to say? You will require some money, Anne, if you are going -away. I can give you twenty pounds, enough to enable you to look about -you. Do as you think best, dear child, in every way.” His head began to -nod again, and then, as if suddenly waking up, he said: - -“I am glad you are going, Anne. I am glad the suggestion came from you: -that it should be your own wish. I am rather bad company, I know, but -there is a reason for that. You think my life here is narrow perhaps, -but you see only one side. I can assure you that you are mistaken; my -life is incredibly rich and overflowing with happiness. But that has to -be hidden; there is a reason for that. I need loneliness; you perhaps -need to see the world at present, but we shall meet again, and I have -no fear that ultimately ... you will understand what is hidden....” He -broke off disconnectedly, and suddenly Anne felt her happiness shot -through by a feeling of dismay, in which she wondered if she could -leave her father to fend for himself. Such phrases were familiar to her -from his lips, but they seemed strange coming at such a moment and when -she went from the room it was with a conviction that she would be doing -wrong to go away. - -Her scruples were soon forgotten in the excitement of making plans, and -the rest of the day was spent in packing and unpacking a wooden box -with her possessions. Two days later all was ready, and the hour of her -departure had been fixed for the morrow. In the morning she went to say -good-bye to Mrs. Sotheby, and to ask if Rachel would come to have tea -with her. - -“We shall miss you very much,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “But I shall try to -think that you are enjoying yourself seeing more of the world than you -would here. I hardly know what to say about Rachel. You know how fond -she is of you. She will want to come to say good-bye; it is a great -pity that Mr. Sotheby has arranged to take us to see the cottages at -Linton. You would not care to come with us, I suppose? Then everyone -would be happy.” - -“I should like to come very much,” said Anne, “if I shall not be in the -way.” - -“I’ll just ask Mr. Sotheby if there will be room in the dog-cart for us -all,” said the old woman and, through the opened door into the parlour, -Anne could see the grocer sitting at the table, looking up from a sheet -of blue paper with a T-square in his hands. - -They set off soon after lunch, Anne sitting on the back seat of the -dog-cart with Rachel, but the pony did not seem to feel the extra -weight. Anne soon set Rachel talking, and the little girl kept her -amused with stories of her school, and how she had been teased about -her brother, and it was some time before she broke the news of her -own departure. Rachel stared down at the road, a yellow river flowing -so swiftly from below the dog-cart that she could not distinguish the -stones in it. “You won’t ever think of me; you won’t write to me; you -won’t ever come back,” were her thoughts, but she knew that she must -hide her unhappiness, and when she spoke, as the trap drew up smartly, -it was to ask: “Will you be going to Paris?” a question which Anne -found so disturbing that she saw little of the first cottage into which -she was led. The smell of fresh paint, mingled with the fragrance -of aromatic pine shavings on the plank floors, recalled her to her -surroundings, and she listened for a moment to Mr. Sotheby, who was -speaking to her. - -“These cottages are only a stepping-stone to greater things, Miss -Dunnock. I have mortgaged them already. What Linton lacks is a -high-class Temperance Hotel, overlooking the river. Such a hotel would -attract visitors for the fishing and boating, and would cater also -for the more respectable commercial men. A Temperance Hotel would -wake up trade in the town, and would provide a delightful centre for -holiday-makers and abstainers, and men from the university.” - -“What shall I say to Rachel?” Anne asked herself as she followed the -grocer up the little staircase into the poky bedrooms, which smelt of -varnish. - -“A little shop like ours is a great snare for a man with ambition. I -have wasted the best years of my life in it, years during which I might -have built up a great merchandising house. But this hotel, and others -like it, will soon make my son a rich man, and provide for Rachel. A -Temperance Hotel with a grand loggia looking over the river, pillars -with climbing roses, a small winter garden with azaleas.... We must -move with the times, you know, Miss Dunnock.” - -Anne descended the narrow stairs and followed Mrs. Sotheby across a -patch of sticky clay to the dog-cart. - -“Yes, I am going to Paris. Don’t tell anyone; it is a secret,” she said -to the little girl as they drove off. It was only after saying this -that Anne looked up at the cottages, seeing them for the first time. -Their extreme ugliness and the evident signs of jerry-building dismayed -her. - -“What will the next thing be like?” she asked herself, remembering -the grocer had spoken of an hotel, and expecting to see it round the -corner. In a moment or two Mr. Sotheby drew rein by the side of the -quiet stream of the Ouse, but there was no building visible, only an -empty field, the site for the new hotel. - -“A lounge hall lit entirely by windows of yellow stained glass is my -idea,” said Mr. Sotheby. “It will give the effect of sunshine all -the year round. The landing-stage is to run the entire length of the -building. It will be covered by a glass roof. There is to be a garage -on the right and a boathouse on the left, each under its own dome -of glass, thus giving symmetry to the whole. There will be central -heating, a lift, electric light, a banqueting hall....” - -Anne gazed at the water-logged field, at the slow stream with the -bunches of reeds and the gasworks on the opposite bank, and ceased to -listen to Mr. Sotheby’s words. The mud and water and slime would remain -mud and water and slime; the fine old bridge with the toll house, -which had once been a chapel, would stay there; nothing would move the -gasworks, and Anne felt unable to picture to herself the glittering -abomination of which the grocer spoke, on that melancholy river bank. - -But Mr. Sotheby went on talking for some time, and, turning her head, -Anne could see that his wife was not listening, and her own attention -soon wandered. She saw the whip being pointed first in one direction -and then in another, and the white beard which wagged as the grocer -opened and shut his mouth, but the stream of words went on unheard. At -last Mr. Sotheby picked up the reins, cracked his whip, and they set -off for home. Except for Rachel, they had enjoyed themselves as Mrs. -Sotheby had predicted. - -No one in Dry Coulter would have recognized the slim figure in a -fashionable tailor-made dress who took her seat in the boat-train three -days later. When she shook her head to refuse the offer of magazines, -no hairpins flew on to the platform, and the reason was explained when -she removed her rakish little hat: Anne wore an Eton crop. Her whole -character seemed to her to have changed, and looking into the mirror -in the lid of her little vanity-case, she was pleased with her new -self. For a moment she fingered an unused lip-stick and then, laughing -to herself, deliberately reddened her lips. She was off to Paris, -alone, to seek her fortune. Her father, everyone at Dry Coulter, every -experience she had ever had in her life seemed never to have existed. -It was a dream which would be speedily forgotten, and reaching for her -bag, Anne opened a French book of which Richard had spoken. - -Somewhere in the Weald of Kent, the grinding noise of the brakes, -suddenly applied, disturbed her reading. The train dragged itself to a -halt and a long silence followed. - -At last Anne threw open the window and peered into the darkness. -There was nothing to be seen but a red light shining somewhere down -the line, and the vague forms of oak trees near at hand. For a moment -there was nothing to be heard, and then, suddenly, her ear caught a -far-off melodious chuckle and a moment afterwards the first startling -clear notes of a bird’s song. The red light changed to green; there was -a long puff, and a series of snorts from the engine; the ticking of -released brakes, and once more the train was in motion. But Anne had -recognized the note of the nightingale. - -“Love,” she said to herself, and began laughing. - - - - -TWELVE: RICHARD’S FRIENDS - - -Two men and a woman were having breakfast in the studio in their -dressing-gowns. - -“Oh, my God, Grandison!” exclaimed Richard Sotheby, after looking into -the letter which Anne had posted two days before in London. “What am I -to do? Here is that girl arriving in Paris to-morrow. She asks me to -get her lodgings, and to meet her at the station. What on earth am I to -do? I wonder if I could stop her coming.... She doesn’t give her London -address. No, I can’t stop her. Oh, what a curse....” - -Grandison laughed and, turning to the woman beside her, told her the -news in bad French. A look of incredulity passed over her brown face, -and then she also began to laugh. The dark eyes sparkled with malice, -the even white teeth shone, she put the point of her healthy pink -tongue between her painted lips; and then, the humour of the situation -increasing as she turned the news over in her mind, she sprang up and -danced bare-footed round the breakfast table in the middle of the -immense room. The skirts of the silk dressing-gown whirled round the -lithe body; every movement was lovely, but neither of the men looked -at her. When she stopped it was to pour out a flood of questions which -went unanswered. - -“It is not a joke,” said Richard Sotheby gloomily. “You will have to -help me. You don’t object, I suppose,” he added in French to the girl, -“if Grandison devotes his time to her?” - -“How insolent you are, Richard!” said the woman, taking hold of -Grandison’s arm, and putting her cheek beside his head. “I am to be -sacrificed because you can’t face a woman. I could call you some hard -names if I chose.” She pouted, but at once went on: “But I won’t, for -I sympathize with you. Really I am anxious to see this girl of yours, -Richard. It will be a curiosity. Are you going to bring her to live -with us? I shall be charming to her, and she will keep me company -sometimes. Two men is more than I can manage.” She pouted again, and -added in tones of deep tenderness: “Two dirty Englishmen.” - -Richard Sotheby looked at her with a patient smile, then, ignoring her -questions, he turned to his friend and said, speaking in English: “And -two women is more than I can manage.” - -Grandison flushed with anger, but Richard forestalled anything he might -have said by adding: “My dear, you know I am fond of Ginette; don’t -misunderstand what I say. But two women is more than I can put up -with....” - -“Why on earth will you persist in regarding Ginette as a woman?” -demanded the younger man in tones of fury. “Woman! woman! It’s always -woman with you. Ginette is Ginette, just as I am Gerald and you are -Richard.” - -Sotheby did not reply, and his friend’s angry tones soon subsided. -Harmony was restored while the breakfast dishes were cleared away, -and for the rest of the morning Anne’s arrival was discussed calmly, -sometimes in English, sometimes in French, while the two men painted -and Ginette posed. In the evening everything that had been said in the -morning was repeated, but at last it was decided that Grandison should -meet Anne at the station, instead of Richard, and that he should take -her to an hotel. - -“Let it be on the other side of Paris,” said Richard next morning, as -he and Grandison left the studio on their way to the station, for he -had decided to accompany his friend in order to point out the girl whom -he was to meet. - -“Everything in France is different,” Anne said to herself as she -looked out of the window of the train. “Those trees must be elms, but -they have been shaved like French poodles so that they are scarcely -recognizable. These are fields of corn, and here are cocks and hens -and cart-sheds, but they do not seem to be the real things so much as -imitations of ours. And the houses! How extraordinarily different are -the houses!” for the train was passing through a station, and building -after building flashed by her: dreary houses with the stucco peeling -off them, each with its broken-slatted shutters beside the windows, -houses such as do not exist in England. - -“If there is any beauty in this country it is of another kind from -our English beauty, just as the ugliness is unlike our ugliness.” The -change did not dismay her; it had the same effect of strangeness as the -reflection of her own cropped head in the glass, seen unexpectedly as -she lifted her handbag from off the luggage rack. - -The train was approaching Paris, and before many minutes had passed a -porter in a blue blouse had seized upon her handbag and Anne forgot to -look for Richard Sotheby in the effort to produce a good impression -on the porter. But even the inadequacy of her French could not detain -him for more than a moment. His moustache trembled eagerly, his eye -flashed, then he had disappeared. - -“What a lovely outline there is to his cheek, how clear his -complexion, how expressive his every movement!” and looking after the -porter she began to fancy that if all Frenchmen were as handsome as the -porter she would be in love with them all. “The beauty of the French -face,” she said, “lies in the beauty of the cheekbones. An English face -is made up of eyes and nose and mouth: the rest of the face is a blank -space, but take away a Frenchman’s eyes: so often like eggs, or olives, -take away his nose, and his mouth (always an uninteresting mouth) and -you find his face is still full of expression and of beauty, indeed the -face is improved.” - -But the porter was back, and had set off down the platform with a -commanding gesture to Anne to follow him, when she found herself being -accosted by a stranger. - -“Is this Miss Dunnock? My name’s Grandison,” he said. “Richard Sotheby -asked me to meet you here; he is not able to come himself....” - -“Ginette Grandison’s brother,” Anne said to herself, looking into the -surly, boyish face, and noticing Grandison’s shyness. Meanwhile the -porter with the lovely cheekbones had disappeared with her suit-case. - -“What does the porter matter?” she thought. “What does the suit-case -matter? What does it matter what this young man is mumbling about -Richard? No, nothing matters. This is Paris; I have arrived, and a -delightful happy life awaits me with these charming people. The opera -... friends.” In such a mood it seemed scarcely surprising that Richard -should after all come up to them just as they were climbing into a cab. - -“What is the latest news from Dry Coulter?” he asked, taking the seat -beside her. Anne had not slept; the channel crossing by night was too -exciting an experience to be missed, and she had remained on deck, -watching the receding lights of England disappear, and then the lights -of France springing up out of the darkness and growing in brilliance -and in number. - -“Dry Coulter?” she asked, and for the first moment the name conveyed -nothing to her. “How can you ask about Dry Coulter when we are in -Paris!” Richard laughed and Anne added at once: “Oh, I went with your -father and mother and Rachel to see the new cottages, and the site for -the hotel.” - -“What hotel?” asked Richard, but while Anne was explaining she did -not notice the look of anxiety on his face, for she was too much -taken up with looking out of the taxi window. Soon she was asking -questions: “What is that building? that street? that monument?” and -was astonished that neither Richard nor his friend could tell her. -She would have liked to spend hours driving about Paris, feeling Mr. -Grandison’s gaze fixed upon her, and aware of the slight flush on her -own cheek, but suddenly they rattled over a bridge and had turned into -a narrow lane. - -“I have taken a room for you here,” said Richard as they drew up. “You -get your breakfast in your room, and an evening meal for about four -shillings a day. I took it for a week. I suppose you will be staying a -week in Paris.” - -“I shall be staying for ever,” answered Anne. - -Grandison gave a short, loud laugh. “I like the way you said that,” he -exclaimed, handing her suit-case out of the cab. - -A sleepy-looking man had opened the hotel door, and was taking her -luggage. - -“We’ll call for you this evening, and take you out to dinner if that -would suit you,” said Richard; and the next moment the taxi began to -move off and she found herself alone. - -“I shall like Mr. Grandison,” she said as she followed the doorkeeper -upstairs, and the excitement of looking at her room was mingled with -the excitement of imagining that in a few days she would be laughing -with the handsome man who had met her, and that he would lose his -surliness and his shyness as they walked through Paris side by side. -By the time she had finished unpacking she felt tired, and she lay -down on the bed to rest. She could not sleep, and an hour later, when -she looked out of the window and saw that the sunlight, which had -greeted her on her arrival, had given place to driving rain. She had no -umbrella, nor mackintosh, so she could not go out, and she felt shy and -uncomfortable as she walked through the passages of the hotel. When she -tried to speak to the chambermaid she found that she had forgotten her -few words of French, but at last the day passed by and she was called -from her room to find Mr. Grandison waiting for her in the hall. - -“Richard sent me: he will meet us in the restaurant,” he said. They got -into a cab, for it was still raining, and drove in silence until Anne, -looking out of the window, asked what street they were in. “I don’t -know,” answered the young man. “There are so many streets in Paris. But -it is quite easy to find one’s way about.” - -Anne would have liked to ask him about his sister, but she lacked the -courage and nothing more was said. The restaurant to which they had -driven was like a hundred others which they had passed on the way, -and appeared indistinguishable from the restaurants on either side of -it; each with basket-work chairs heaped upside down on the little iron -tables outside, with an awning flapping in the wind, and “Brasserie” -written in gigantic letters along the front. It was still raining, but -when they had passed through the doors they found the room was crowded. - -Richard was waiting for them at a corner table, and they sat down. Soon -food was brought them, and Richard began to speak about the restaurant, -but Anne hardly took in his words and forgot to help herself from the -little dishes, for she was charmed by the scene before her: the small -tables, each with its merry party, men laughing hastily before filling -their mouths with soup, swallowing it, and then laughing again as they -tore the long rolls of bread to pieces with their fingers. - -But Richard was pressing Anne to help herself, handing her the little -dishes and filling her glass with yellow wine, then turning and -speaking to Grandison about some play of Ibsen’s which was being acted -at a theatre in Paris. Anne’s pleasure was increased by knowing that -Richard and his friend were talking of a play which she had read, and -that she could share in the discussion if she chose, but her attention -wandered once more, and she was the first to notice a girl who came -towards them threading her way between the tables, followed by a fat -man with a square red beard, who stopped to speak to some acquaintances -who hailed him as he passed. But the girl came on and held out a cool -brown hand for Anne to shake. - -“Mademoiselle Lariboisière--always called Ginette,” said Richard. -Ginette was beautiful, very beautiful, and Anne wondered how the -mistake had arisen which had made her expect Ginette to be Mr. -Grandison’s sister. Instead of that she was a Frenchwoman with a lean -brown face like a mask and dark hazel eyes with black lashes. - -“If I were only like Ginette,” she thought, a wish that recurred for -many days afterwards whenever she was in her company, never guessing -that the French girl was saying to herself: “If I were only like this -English girl of Richard’s!” - -Ginette sat down opposite them without appearing surprised that Richard -and Gerald should go on talking in English and pay no attention to her, -interrupting each other, laughing at one moment and becoming almost -angry in the next. But though they were talking in English, Anne did -not listen either; she gazed across the table at Ginette, wishing that -she could speak to her and get to know her. At last the meal was over, -the dishes were cleared away and soon they were joined by the fat man, -in spite of all appearances an American. - -Anne found that he was kissing her hand, and a drop of soup from his -beard was smeared over her fingers. Her face showed her disgust as she -jumped up from her seat, and without speaking to the American, who had -drawn a chair near her, she went over to Ginette. But Ginette did not -understand English, and after one or two halting sentences Anne fell -into silence. - -The group round the table was joined by several people, and each -newcomer shook hands all round the table before sitting down. Anne -had never shaken hands so often in her life, but there was no more -hand-kissing and there were no more beards. A Chinaman seated himself -beside Ginette, and they spoke so slowly that Anne was able to -follow their conversation; and she was astonished that she had heard -everything they said on the lips of English curates at tea parties -in English parsonages. After a little while Grandison came and sat -beside her and poured her out a glass of something warm, perfumed and -sticky; it seemed the most delicious liquid that she had ever tasted. -Conversation flowed on all sides of her, but she sat quiet, saying -nothing and looking at the pink face and the fair hair of Richard’s -friend and then at the Chinaman, who was talking so quietly and so -tediously about the fatigues of railway journeys to Ginette, both of -them indifferent to the shouting, excited group clustered round Richard -and the red-bearded American. Anne did not gather what the subject -of their argument was and she felt no desire to do anything. An hour -passed and then another hour, and once Grandison called to the waiter, -who refilled her little glass with the liqueur. It was enough for her -to know that she was in Paris, and that this was her welcome. The -voices, the faces, the Chinaman and Ginette melted into a dream full -of colour and of movement and shot through with music; her head nodded -and when Grandison touched her on the shoulder she smiled at him and -realized that she was very tired. - -“I want to go to bed,” she said. “Will you please tell me the address -of my hotel?” - -“I’ll see you home,” he said. “Richard is set now; he will stay here -for hours.” - -It had stopped raining, and they walked. The streets gleamed, and they -turned into a great open place filled with trees and people sauntering -under them. Men in groups were talking and laughing, pretty girls and -painted women flashed their golden teeth as they passed by. - -“How beautiful a town is,” Anne said, almost unconscious that she was -speaking aloud. “But I shall never be at home in one. The stones of the -streets frighten me. I love the garden where: - - Stumbling on melons as I pass - Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass, - Annihilating all that’s made - To a green thought in a green shade.” - -She paused for a moment, stumbled with sleepiness and took Grandison’s -arm. - -“The crowd here is so thick,” she continued. “The faces search one’s -face, the eyes meet one’s eyes, yet they all seem to be looking for -someone they can never find.” - -They walked on slowly for some way in silence, but at last she spoke -again. - -“I believe everyone here is pursuing a dream, just as I pursued a dream -walking under the elms at home; they speak to each other and pass on, -but they never know each other. Man is always alone. They speak to each -other, their eyes meet and sparkle; they smile and take each other -by the arm: all in a dream. Here am I walking beside you, both of us -are dreaming, unable to awake or to speak to each other.” There was -a pause; Grandison did not contradict what she had said, and then she -murmured, more to herself than to him: “I am utterly alone, but so is -everybody else.” - -They continued walking for a long way through deserted streets. Anne -was feeling depressed by her train of thought, and Grandison was -silent, but when at last they reached the Rue de Beaune she felt as if -he had spoken and she had understood. - -They shook hands, he looked into her eyes, cleared his throat as if he -were going to speak, swallowed something, but then turned away without -a word. - -“I was wrong,” Anne said, feeling her heart filled once more with hope. -“There is patience and nobility and honesty and faithfulness in the -world.” As she dropped asleep it seemed to her that these qualities -were inseparable from blue eyes and fair hair and fresh, blunt -features. - - - - -THIRTEEN: PARIS - - -Next day, when she got up, Anne said to herself that she must see -Richard at once to discuss her plans with him. But the beauty of the -day tempted her to explore Paris. The morning was spent happily in -looking into the windows of the shops in the Rue de Rivoli and in -buying herself an umbrella; then she lunched alone, thinking that -it would be better to reach the studio in the afternoon. But it was -already late before she found Montmartre, and when at last she had -mounted the staircase and had rung the bell she was prepared for -Richard to be out. - -“A day wasted,” she said to herself, but in her heart she felt that it -had been well spent, wishing that she could spend another day and then -another in wandering about Paris. In the evening she had dinner at her -hotel, and then went out once more to see the town by night. - -“I can never get lost in Paris so long as I can find the river, for if -I follow the river sooner or later I must come to the Pont Royal, and -from there it is but a step to my hotel.” She walked along the quays -for some little way, but the Place de la Concorde tempted her with its -wide expanse, and presently she found herself under the trees of the -Champs Elysées. The clouds parted and the moonlight shone through the -young leaves, a few dark figures moved in the shadows, and a band of -young men passed her humming a foxtrot. Anne stopped for a moment and -waved her arms with a sense of freedom and then strode rapidly up the -hill. - -At the Étoile she turned to the left down an avenue, which she guessed -would bring her to the river, and when she saw the moonlight shining -over the water she cried aloud: “I am free. I can do what I like; I can -live how I like. I may never see Richard or his friend or anyone I have -ever met, again. I have no friends in the world. Nobody can interfere -now with my happy life!” And suddenly, as she gazed over the water, -Anne remembered how she had wept in her bedroom on the morning when -the ploughmen had come. “No need for tears now that the accursed chain -is broken. Who would guess, meeting me here, that I was the vicar’s -daughter with no hope of escaping from the parish? I am still alone, -absolutely alone, but I care nothing for that because I am free. I -am free!” she repeated in a loud voice which startled her, but there -was no one near her, and she set off along the bank of the river. -“I shall never go back!” she said, drawing herself up proudly, then, -looking at the water, she wished that she could bathe, and her gaiety -and irresponsibility were such that she was almost on the point of -undressing beneath a lamp-post and plunging in. She recollected in time -that she would be saved by a French policeman, and walked on laughing -as she pictured to herself the explanations that she would offer next -morning in the police-court in her broken French. - -“Richard would never forgive me if I dragged him to a police-court,” -she said, and her thoughts went back to her father. “Strange how blind -I was, thinking that he needed me when he welcomed my going. But, who -knows? he may be missing me now.” She turned back when she had reached -St. Cloud and retraced her footsteps easily; in less than an hour she -had reached the Pont Royal. - -“I have done something that no respectable girl should do,” she said as -she went up to her room. “I have run the risk of being spoken to in the -street. Apparently I am not attractive enough to be in any danger from -the vicious,” she added as she looked in the glass, but she was pleased -with what she saw there and fell asleep at once. - -There was a letter from Richard waiting for her asking her to luncheon -the following day, and when the time came Anne was overjoyed to see a -familiar face once more, though she had been repeating to herself the -words she had spoken by the river. - -The door of the studio was opened by Ginette, who held out a cool hand. -As the girl turned to lead her in, Anne looked at the dark head with -the short black hairs cropped close to the brown neck and such envy -filled her at the sight that she nearly burst into tears. To be cool -and dark and brown, to live in a studio with two men, to talk French, -such were the hopeless ambitions which filled her heart. Grandison got -up from his chair as she came in but he said nothing, only bowed and -sat down again with his eyes on her face. Richard was washing his hands -in the corner. “Don’t come near me, Anne, I am covered with paint,” he -called out, but his voice sounded friendly as though he were glad to -see her. - -Ginette laid her hand on her shoulder: - -“You are very beautiful,” she brought out laboriously. She had been -practising the phrase all the morning, and the unexpected words set -Anne blushing with pleasure. “Richard has said much of you but not that -you are beautiful. He is bad.” - -Anne’s blush was a blush of happiness, and she caught the French girl -by the hand and pressed it. Ginette laughed and raised her eyebrows, -and would have spoken if they had not been startled by Grandison, who -ordered them to sit down to luncheon. - -“I have brought some of the drawings I did for fashion plates to show -you,” said Anne, but Richard did not refer to them when the meal was -over; he seemed more interested in Dry Coulter than in Paris, and began -to speak of the village while his companions sat in silence. - -“I have heard from Rachel: she is very excited as she is going to -be chosen Queen of the May. You know May-day is even more of an -institution than Plough Monday,” he said, turning towards Grandison. -“It is celebrated more pleasantly in an English village than in Paris.” -And Richard began to describe how five little girls were chosen, of -whom Rachel would be the leader, to go from house to house carrying an -arbour of flowers and singing whatever songs they happened to know. - -“The arbour is made of cowslips and may, with a few of the early purple -orchids,” said Anne, calling up the memory of May-day a year ago. “It -was raining when they came to the vicarage and they wore yellow ribbons -and sang ‘Ta ra ra Boom de ay.’ I opened the door and they went on -singing without paying any attention to the sixpence I held out to -them.” - -“That sixpence went to the chapel Sunday School Treat,” said Richard. -“Paganism has been made respectable.” - -“What will Rachel wear as the May Queen?” - -“She speaks of a wreath of pansies if there are enough of them out to -make it; her companions will have chaplets of forget-me-nots, and they -will carry the bower while she carries an armful of tulips. She did not -speak of her dress, but of course it will be a white one, and they will -wear black worsted stockings and solid little hobnailed boots laced -high up the leg.” - -“Rachel doesn’t worry about her boots,” said Anne at once, and her -thoughts flew back to Mr. Yockney, then she looked round the studio -thinking that the rent was paid out of the grocer’s shop at home. “I -think Rachel’s perfectly happy. I think all your family are,” she said. - -“So they ought to be,” said Richard, laughing. “See what a good son -I am. I give my father an object in life, which is more than any of -you do. He is very happy and proud of me. In the old days of course,” -Richard went on, “the first of May was a great affair, with a maypole -set up and a Jack of the Green. The May Queen was not a little girl in -those days. You would have been chosen instead of Rachel and, having -been kissed by all the boys in the village, you would have got rid of -your obsession about never getting to know anyone.” - -Anne blushed uncomfortably, and looked at Grandison, who must, she -thought, have repeated what she had said while he was seeing her home. -“An obsession about never getting to know anyone!” and she wondered if -Richard had summed her up for ever in these unkind words. - -“I expect the maze was laid out on a May-day,” said Richard, “and the -monument is nothing more than a stone maypole, or something with the -same signification.” - -“I can tell you about the monument,” said Anne. “It commemorates the -restoration of Charles II, and was put up by a young man of nineteen, -who must have come back from France with the King and recovered his -sequestered estate:--a small enough one, I should guess, and the Old -Hall. I suppose the maze might have been cut on a May-day, and no doubt -they had a maypole on the green again: they had been put down under -the Commonwealth, but I doubt if there were many to dance. All the -better people had served in Cromwell’s regiments. Except in Huntingdon -itself, they were all Puritans.” - -“Then we must imagine your young cavalier setting up a maypole on the -green and dancing with gypsy girls and all the riff-raff he could -assemble, while the village people held aloof under the elm trees round -the edges of the green and prayed for a thunderstorm,” said Richard. - -“There were oak trees in those days, not elms,” said Anne. - -“How do you know that?” he asked her sharply. - -She knew positively, but she had forgotten how she knew and, as she -repeated that she was sure, she felt that she must seem very stupid to -Mr. Grandison. - -“Well, he danced in a scarlet coat with lace ruffles, which he -had brought back from France, with the gipsy girls in their rags, -and Maggie Pattle joined in for the sake of the beer, but all the -respectable tenants stood under the oak trees looking glum and hating -him. But how do you explain that the monument is still standing and -that, though it is the most striking thing in the village, nobody ever -looks at it or knows anything about it? If one asks a question they -just shake their heads and change the conversation.” - -“The young cavalier lived to be eighty-eight,” answered Anne. “It is -natural that nobody would dare disturb his maze while he was living, -or to pull down the stone column sculptured with his arms. All the -Puritans were dead before he was, and the significance of the monument -was forgotten by 1729.” - -“But the civil war isn’t forgotten,” said Richard. - -“I have often heard a villager say when someone has got into trouble -for poaching hares: ‘We want another of the Cromwells in this country. -There were no game laws in Nolly’s time.’” - -“I expect there is a tradition that the maze represents something out -of harmony with the village: they have ignored it for so long that they -have forgotten everything except that it is something which ought to be -ignored,” said Anne. - -Richard agreed with her, and an hour passed before she remembered the -drawings she had brought to show him. - -“Leave them for me to look at,” said Richard, but she would not be -put off. As she untied the portfolio she felt that her fingers were -trembling, and she became confused as she explained that she knew her -drawings were not fashionable: she had done them at Dry Coulter in -ignorance of what the latest fashions might be, thinking that they -would serve as specimens to show her workmanship. Instead of explaining -this clearly, what she said was something very silly, but Richard did -not smile at her absurdity, and there was an absolute silence as she -laid the first of the drawings on the table, propping it up against a -wine bottle. - -For a long while Richard Sotheby stood wrinkling his nose and Gerald -and Ginette stood silent. - -“And the next,” said Richard sharply, but, going to the portfolio -himself, he turned over the other drawings rapidly. There was a silence -again as he carefully fastened the clasp of the portfolio, and then -turned and walked a few steps away. Suddenly, however, he began to -speak, and the words fell so rapidly that Anne could scarcely follow -them. - -“Dress designers are very stupid people,” he began. “Don’t be -discouraged when I advise you not to show these actual drawings. -In order to create an impression you must first obtain a thorough -knowledge of the mode. There is just as much fashion in the drawings of -dresses as in the dresses themselves. What would have been all right -last year or the year before is quite out of date now.” And he began to -explain very rapidly what these changes in styles of drawing had been. - -He was interrupted suddenly by Ginette. Anne could not follow her -words, but she noticed Grandison nod his head vigorously and say: -“An excellent idea,” while an expression of exasperation came over -Richard’s white face. - -When he turned to Anne she felt a sudden conviction that her drawings -were bad and that Richard was concealing his opinion of them. - -“Ginette is of the opinion that you are the right figure, and that you -have acquired, Heaven knows how, the right appearance for a mannequin. -She wants to introduce you to a man she knows who works in one of the -wholesale houses. I think that you would dislike such a life and would -soon wish that you were back in England. But don’t despair about your -drawings,” he added, almost shouting the last words. - -Anne took up her portfolio, turning Ginette’s advice over in her mind. - -“How should I get a job as a mannequin?” she asked, but an argument -had broken out between Richard and Ginette and her question went -for some time unanswered. At last he turned from the French girl in -exasperation, and she repeated her question. - -“Ginette will let you know,” he said. “Come to tea to-morrow at five -o’clock.” The tone of the invitation was so cross that Anne said -good-bye at once. Grandison had scarcely spoken a word during the -discussion, but as she left the room he made a gesture as if he would -speak, but he said nothing. - -“What have I done to upset them all so much?” she asked herself as -she hurried down the stairs, but she could find no answer. Richard’s -words had been encouraging, yet she was tempted to tear up her wretched -drawings then and there. - -“Yes, my fashion plates are hopeless,” she said to herself, but she -found it hard to understand why Richard should have been so exasperated -by Ginette’s suggestion. “If my drawings are no good I must find some -other way of earning my living. Richard would keep me in a fool’s -paradise until my money is exhausted.” - -Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of footsteps, and she -heard a voice calling her. It was Richard. - -“I meant to ask you: if you are short of money, let me lend you ten -pounds. You must have time to look about you.” - -Anne stared at him in surprise. He was very white; out of breath with -running and his words came with an effort, but his tone was still one -of exasperation. - -“Thank you,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “Thank you, I have -still seventeen pounds.” - -“Well, later on,” answered Richard. “Whenever you want a loan, come -to me. While one has money it is one’s duty to share it. That is what -Grandison and I believe, and after all you and I come from the same -village.” - -After saying this he turned round and walked back, quietly cursing her -existence. - - - - -FOURTEEN: A REMOVAL - - -“How could I ever have imagined that I was in love with Richard -Sotheby?” Anne asked herself in astonishment as she walked back across -Paris. “It turns out I don’t love him enough to borrow money from him. -He would always behave well, he would always be kind, yet I think he -would be delighted if he were never to see me again. I shall never ask -him for help or for advice; I shall never go near his studio after -to-morrow.” And it occurred to her suddenly that the money he had -offered to lend her had been earned by his father, and that it might -have been spent on Rachel, or on the Temperance Hotel. - -“I wonder why it is that Ginette loves him?” she asked herself. “If she -really does. If I were her I should lose my heart to Mr. Grandison.” -And saying this she recalled the look in Grandison’s eyes and how he -had kept them fixed on her, how he had seemed to be going to speak and -the gesture with which he had sunk back into his chair as she went out -of the studio. “Richard has robbed me of knowing him. We should easily -have become intimate, we should have been friends,” she said with her -heart full of bitterness. Every detail of her walk with Grandison came -back and hurt her. - -“Well, I am to be a mannequin if they like my figure.” The more she -thought of Ginette’s suggestion the better she liked it, and the more -difficult she found it to understand Richard’s annoyance. She was -puzzled to find an explanation, and tried one theory after another, but -nothing she could imagine seemed to her probable, and when five o’clock -came on the following afternoon she had almost persuaded herself -that the explanation of Richard’s ill-humour must be something quite -unconnected with herself. She knocked and Richard opened the door, and -stood for a moment in the threshold before admitting her. He stared at -her with a grin on his face and said: “Oh! So it is you, Anne!” - -“Weren’t you expecting me?” she asked, noticing his surprise. “You said -I was to come to tea.” - -Richard Sotheby led her into the studio, and Ginette rose from the -sofa, where she had been lying. The girl’s face had changed; Anne -could see that she had been crying, but there was so much pride in her -greeting that she felt shy of looking her in the face. - -“Here is a letter for you,” said Ginette gravely, speaking in French -and pronouncing her words with the greatest distinctness. “You are to -present it personally to M. Kieselyov at that address at eight o’clock -to-morrow morning. If he thinks you are in the English style he will -engage you.” - -“Thank you with all my heart. Your goodness....” Ginette did not wait -for Anne to finish her sentence, but walked away across the room. - -Richard was making the tea. “Have you heard from your father?” he asked. - -“No, I haven’t,” said Anne, feeling rather guilty. She had not written -to him since her arrival. - -“I had a letter from mother with messages for you from Rachel.” He was -half tempted to add that their names must be coupled together in the -village by now, and that this was disagreeable to him, but he looked at -Anne and refrained. - -She had taken off her hat, and the short, closely cropped hair shone -like straw. There was a worried look on her pale face. - -“My God, what innocence!” he said to himself. - -“Ginette and Richard have been quarrelling,” thought Anne, wondering if -Grandison would come in, for she was miserably disappointed not to see -him. - -But instead of asking if he would be back to tea she said: “I wonder if -the swallows are building again in our dove house.” - -“Do they build there?” asked Richard, and the whole expression of his -face altered at her words. - -“Yes, they have a nest on the joist. Father leaves the top half of the -door open for them and they fly in and out. They are the prettiest -of the birds; my favourites, for no birds exceed them in loveliness -of colouring: the steel-blue back, the crimson throat and the white -belly. The flight of the swallow is more beautiful than that of any -other bird, but this pair are prettiest when they sit side by side on -the rails outside the dove house. Their spirits always seem to me a -little low: she moves one wing and then the other, as though she were -shrugging her little shoulders, and then, suddenly, he bursts into -song. Do you know the swallows’ song?” - -“No,” said Richard. “I have never heard a swallow sing.” He sat down -and buried his face in his hands, and repeated in tones of utter -wretchedness: “No, I have never heard a swallow sing.” - -“He has the clear note of a contralto; not loud or defiant, nor yet -feeble, but full of love, subdued because he can never forget that the -world is full of cruelty and unkindness.” - -Ginette broke in with a question as to what Anne had said. - -Richard told her, and the French girl smiled wearily. - -“In England it is only the swallows apparently which have discovered -such platitudes.” Then she added: “Why is she staying?” - -“It appears we invited her to tea,” answered Richard in a low voice. - -There was the sound of a heavy tramp on the stairs and then a knock. -Richard stood up and went to the door. Anne looked across at Ginette -and saw that she was gazing at her with a strange expression. - -“I must go,” she said to herself. “Why does she look at me as if she -felt contempt for me?” But it seemed impossible to go after that look -without an explanation. The memory of that expression would haunt her. - -She looked up and saw that Richard had come back from the door, and -that a workman had followed him, and together they crossed the studio -and disappeared into the little room at the back. - -Anne sat and sipped her tea, tortured by the need to speak, to ask -a question, to see light, and by the desire to escape, to go out of -the studio and never to set foot in it again. But she could not find -the words with which to ask her question or to take her leave, and -she sat on, dumbly watching the workman crossing the room, first with -a rolled-up mattress in his arms and then with a little folding bed -or carrying a wash-hand-stand. Richard came back and threw himself -down in a chair. There was a silence, prolonged until the workman -reappeared, crossed the studio and went out once more with a chair and -a looking-glass. - -Ginette gave Richard an appealing look and he said: - -“Anne, I think perhaps you had better go now. Ginette and I are both -rather upset.” He paused for a moment and said in colourless tones: -“Besides, someone who wishes to see you is waiting.” - -Anne rose. “Good-bye, Mademoiselle Lariboisière,” she said, holding out -her hand. The brown hand gripped hers firmly. - -“Till we meet again,” she said, and then added in broken English: “You -have a lucky face.” - -“Thank you for telling me about the swallows,” said Richard as he -stood above her at the top of the stairs. - -The French workman was struggling with a small table on the staircase -and it was some moments before she could reach the street. - -“Never to know the meaning! Never to learn the secret! Never to -understand anything at all!” Anne cried with tears coming into her -eyes. “I have never seen into another person’s heart. I never shall. -Wherever I am, my curse clings to me!” A vague project of suicide, -of being found floating in the river, passed through her mind as she -stepped out into the street. The workman was still in front of her -lifting the table into a small motor-van; in avoiding him she ran into -Grandison’s back. - -“Good God! You here! Don’t go away!” he exclaimed, as though she was -running from him. Anne stepped back and stood for a moment staring in -astonishment into his red face. - -His words sounded angry, and his blue eyes glittered angrily so that -she felt afraid and her first impulse was to run back into the house. -“I cannot go up there again,” flashed through her mind, and she turned -again to Grandison. - -“Miss Dunnock,” said the young man, still looking at her, almost -murderously. “I must make an explanation.” - -The word explanation caught her ears. “No, that is impossible,” she -said to herself for some reason. “An explanation is impossible.” - -“I don’t understand,” she said in a weak voice, giving up all thoughts -of flight. She was almost in tears. “I don’t understand anything.” - -Grandison’s anger or passion seemed suddenly to have completely -disappeared. He looked at her appealingly with an expression in which -she could read pity for her and misery on his own account. For a moment -he tried to speak and choked, and then, swallowing, went on rapidly: - -“It is rather complicated. I am taking away my furniture to a new room -and must superintend the man unpacking it. If you could come with me in -the van we could talk to each other.” - -The van was packed; the man was waiting, impatient of their -conversation. Anne did not hesitate, but scrambled up on to the -tail-board of the van and settled herself on the rolled-up mattress. - -She was excited without knowing why, and suddenly, looking at Grandison -perched beside her on the edge of the wash-hand-stand, she felt happy -and secure. - -“I want to explain,” he said suddenly, as though he were defending -himself. “This is my furniture. I am taking it away from the studio -because I cannot live with Richard or with Ginette any longer. I have -broken with them completely, and have taken a room of my own.” - -There was so much suffering in his voice that Anne understood that -there had been a quarrel. At that moment all seemed suddenly to have -become clear to her, and she felt that she was a very experienced -person. “What foolishness!” she exclaimed to herself. - -“Why should they have quarrelled?” And she decided to persuade -Grandison to turn back. - -“Why do you want to leave them?” she asked gently. She was preparing -to reason with him sympathetically, and softly to lead him back to -Richard. For a moment Grandison sat silent, and something in his sullen -expression, his trembling lip and the way in which he opened and then -shut his hand, moved her very much. - -“I must explain,” he repeated. “Ever since I met you at the station I -have been madly in love with you.” - -Anne felt cold all over as she heard these words; she shivered and -gazed at Grandison with frightened eyes, asking herself if she had -heard what he had said aright; a suspicion crossed her mind that he was -playing a joke on her, a heartless practical joke. She gazed at him in -terror, but he went on without turning his head to look at her: “It -has been awful. I could not speak to you while I was still living in -Richard’s studio. I think Ginette guessed but Richard did not suspect -until I told him after you went yesterday. I did not think it would -upset him so much or that it would upset me so much.” - -“I don’t understand why he should be upset or why he dislikes me, but -I feel he does. There has never been anything between Richard and me,” -said Anne. She stopped, feeling that she had said something foolish. - -“I know, but there has been a great deal between Richard and me,” -answered Grandison. “Just now he hates you, though it is not your fault -that I am in love with you, and he knows that.” - -“He has got Ginette,” said Anne. - -“Oh, my God!” cried Grandison, making the most awful face. “Ginette was -my mistress. Surely you knew that?” - -Anne gazed at the cuff of Grandison’s coat: a check material with a -little wavy thread of purple running among the fawns and greys. She was -overcome with shame and confusion at her ignorance and her stupidity. -There was a long silence. - -“This doesn’t seem like a trick,” she said to herself, but the fear -that Grandison might in some way be playing some strange and terrible -joke at her expense remained at the back of her mind. - -“For some reason I thought that Ginette and you were the same person -before I arrived,” she said. “You see I overheard Richard spelling out -a telegram to you in French before I had ever spoken to him.” - -“A telegram?” Grandison asked in astonishment. “Oh, yes, perhaps he -did telegraph. I wrote and told him that I was in love with Ginette -and that I proposed taking her to live with us.... That was a dreadful -thing to have done. You see, Richard was very fond of me; he cares -about nobody else,” he said suddenly, wiping the sweat off his forehead. - -“I have always, all my life, mismanaged my love affairs. But that is -because I have never been in love before. Now I am in love with you -and I determined not to mismanage that but to make a clean sweep of -everything.” - -This remark, and the defiant tone in which it was uttered, struck Anne -as comic; she laughed but immediately regretted having done so, for -Grandison burst into tears. - -She had never seen a man weep before and was alarmed. The tears -streamed down his cheeks and hung on the stubble of his beard, for -he had not shaved that day, and then fell one after another on to his -knees. - -Anne jumped up from the mattress, hitting her head on the top of the -van. “Oh! Damn!” She clutched Grandison round the shoulders while -her eyes filled with tears from the pain. “Don’t cry; I have hit my -head such an awful crack, but you see I am not crying,” she said, -hugging him and then slipping on to her knees. He looked at her, and -the van pulled up with a jerk just as they found each other’s faces -in a kiss. They alighted, and Grandison led the way into the meanest -building that Anne had ever seen. His room was on the top floor, and -as they ascended, an odour of cooking, of accumulated filth, of bugs -and of boiled rags took them by the throat. But they climbed on, up -and up, and behind them toiled the indignant workman, sweating under -the mattress in his arms, and pausing to curse the smells and the -filthiness of the house under his breath. - -“The view is magnificent,” said Grandison with a sweep of his arm as he -threw open the door of a tiny attic. - -“Put the things down anywhere, just as you like,” he added to the -workman. He was right, the view was magnificent. All Paris lay -glittering at their feet in the sunshine, and Anne forgot the -malodorous staircase as she leant out of the open window. - -“Yes, the view is lovely,” she said, turning to Grandison, but an -altercation was going on with the workman, who was repeating again and -again: “This place stinks.” - -Grandison could understand the words well enough, but he was offended -and resolutely shrugged his shoulders, repeating: “Don’t understand. -Fetch my furniture.” - -“This place stinks,” repeated the workman with appropriate gestures. -“It gives me a bad throat.” He made sounds as if he were going to be -sick. - -“I don’t understand what you say; fetch the furniture,” repeated -Grandison in a rage, and began to push the man out of the room. “A -house full of Poles and bugs,” said the man as he made off down the -staircase. - -“It’s quite an accident,” said Grandison, “that there is such a -wonderful view. I took the first room I could find, by candle light. It -is dirty, but I had it scrubbed out with disinfectant this morning. I -shall get some sulphur candles in case what he says about the bugs is -true.” - -Anne sniffed: a smell of Jeyes fluid hung in the air. They were silent, -gazing out of the window, waiting while the slow tramp of feet and -muttered curses drew nearer and the man came in carrying the bed. - -“It stinks,” he announced, returning to Richard. - -Grandison cursed suddenly with great obscenity in fluent French. - -“You mustn’t talk to me like that,” answered the man, but he left the -room after looking at Anne with an air of icy disapproval. “Damn the -fellow,” said Grandison, and they remained silent while the table, the -wash-hand-stand, a piece of drugget and the chairs were brought in. - -Grandison had recovered his temper by then, and gave the man a tip. -“One doesn’t say such things,” said the workman, pocketing it, and he -went down the stairs clearing his throat. They listened to the tramp -of feet descending the stairs without looking at each other, and stood -motionless through the minutes of dead silence which followed. “He must -be waiting and poking about in the hall,” was their unspoken thought -and, exchanging a swift glance, they nodded their suspicions. A sudden -crash resounded up the stairs of the outer door being slammed, and they -smiled happily at each other, for love is impossible except in secret. -But although they smiled the silence continued, their hearts beating -faster and faster and confusion coming upon them. - -“We must put up the bed,” said Anne. - -Grandison helped her mechanically; the pleasure of her presence near -him was so great that he was afraid to speak lest some word of his -might scare her away. Together they unfolded the legs of the narrow -iron bedstead, set it upon its feet, covered it with a weedy mattress -and a coverlet. Then they laid the carpet on the floor, set the trunk -in one corner, the washstand in another, and put the table in the -middle of the room. There was nothing more to be done, and after -speaking once or twice of buying such necessaries as a broom and a -looking-glass, they became silent again, Anne sitting in the only -chair, Grandison upon the bed, while darkness closed in on them very -slowly. - -It seemed to the girl then that at last she had found what she had been -seeking. - -“I have found this room,” she said to herself, and already she was at -home in it, and she sat musing over the vast landscape of the future, -of which she had suddenly caught a glimpse as she had of Paris itself, -but without knowledge and unable to recognize the landmarks. - -But at last, rousing herself, she looked about her and asked suddenly: -“How will you paint in such a small room?” - -“I don’t know,” he answered. “I only paint because Richard does.” - -“It has got dark,” she said. “I can’t see your face.” - -He struck a match and they looked at each other. - -“I haven’t got a candle,” he said apologetically. “And there is no gas.” - -Anne rose from her chair. “She is going,” Grandison said to himself -as he stood up. Their hands touched and they embraced. “I have always -loved you. Before I knew you. Before I knew myself, while I was still -in the navy,” he whispered rapidly between his kisses. - -The whispering went on and on in the dark room, lit by the flickering -arc lamps in the street below. Each whisper was a charm that breathed -love into her, that stole away her strength, and that changed her -nature. Yet Anne still held herself alert, danger seemed near; at any -moment a heavy footstep might sound upon the stairs, a voice break in. -It seemed to her that if she sat very still the danger might pass, and -when Grandison’s voice rose she stroked his hair nervously--hair as -short and thick and soft as fur. - -“Richard--the danger is Richard,” she said to herself, recognizing that -she was helpless in face of that danger. - -Hours passed but no footstep sounded on the stairs, and no voice spoke -out of the darkness; only the moon breaking through the clouds flooded -the room with light, showing them to each other. They became hungry, -but they forgot their hunger, remembered the passage of time and as -soon forgot it, grew sleepy and did not think of sleep. - -A clock struck and they counted eleven strokes. - -“You must be hungry,” said Anne. - -“Yes, I am,” answered Grandison, surprised, but he took an apple from -his pocket, and when they had shared it their hunger seemed to be -satisfied. - -A clock struck, and they lost count of the strokes. - -“It is midnight,” said Anne. “I must go back to my hotel.” But she did -not move, and an hour later she had consented to stay the night, had -undressed in the dark and had got into the bed, while Grandison had -wrapped himself in his overcoat and, covered with the piece of drugget, -was stretched out upon the floor. - -For a long while Anne went on stroking his hair, and when at last they -fell asleep he was still grasping her hand in both of his and holding -it to his lips. - -“What’s the matter?” - -A strangled cry of “Help!” was ringing in her ears, but she understood -that it was her own voice that she had heard. - -“What’s the matter, Anne?” - -“It is all right,” she answered, coming to herself, but her voice was -full of fear, and Grandison, sitting up by her bed, could see her -shudder. - -“I suppose it was a dream,” she murmured, and suddenly the fear left -her as the details of her nightmare came back, and she lay in silence -piecing them together. - -“It was something awful about my father,” she said. “I was alone, -quite alone, in the vicarage. There was no furniture; I went from room -to room looking for my father, but all the rooms were empty; all the -furniture had been taken away but they had left me behind. Suddenly I -looked out of the bedroom window, my father’s bedroom, for it was at -the front of the house, and as I expected I saw a Ford van stop at the -gate and people getting out of it.” Anne shuddered again violently and -Grandison began stroking her shoulder. “Don’t tell me if it frightens -you,” he said. - -“Two women came first, and I was frightened of them because I could -see that they were imbecile from the way they walked, but I was more -frightened of the men. They weren’t mad but I could see madness in -their faces, and I recognized them at once. They were the Puttys, who -used to live in the Burnt Farm, but it seemed to me that they were -coming to our house. They looked from side to side with wooden faces, -and I could see that underneath their woodenness they were full of -terror. When they got to the door I could no longer see them, for I -dared not look down on their heads, but I heard them unlock the door -and knew that they had come to take possession. All I could do was to -hide, and for a long while I lay holding my breath and listening as -they laughed and screamed and threw plates at each other downstairs. -Then I heard the man coming up the stairs in his heavy hobnail boots. I -heard him fumble at the door and I began to scream.” - -“Poor creature,” said Grandison. “Who were these people?” - -“The Puttys; Richard’s mother told me their story: they lived at the -Burnt Farm,” answered Anne, and stopped, realizing that her words could -mean nothing to Grandison. - -“You aren’t frightened any longer, are you?” he asked, and his jaws -were pulled apart violently in a yawn; he shivered all over. When he -could speak again he repeated: “You are quite sure that you aren’t -frightened any longer?” He leant towards her to kiss her, but stopped, -feeling another yawn upon him. - -“No, why should I be?” she replied, and without waiting to hear what -else she had to say he lay down on the bare boards and was asleep. - -Anne’s fear had gone, but one thing still puzzled her; for though -she had no memory of her father in her dream she knew that it was -terrifying because of him, not because of the Puttys. - -“Yes, the subject of my dream was my father,” she repeated to herself, -wondering suddenly what she was doing in Paris, and hearing a slight -snore she looked over the edge of the bed at the sleeping figure beside -her. - -“Why am I here?” she thought. “This is madness!” and she determined -to get out of bed and dress and hurry away if she could do so without -waking her neighbour. A minute passed while she waited for him to fall -sound asleep, but he stirred uneasily when she sat up in bed. “I must -give him five minutes,” she thought. “Then I shall be rested.” She lay -back, aware that a task awaited her which would need all her strength, -but before two minutes had passed she began breathing gently and was -asleep herself. - - - - -FIFTEEN: HONEYMOONING - - -A month had passed, and in the last week of their honeymoon Mr. and -Mrs. Grandison were staying at an hotel in Avignon. The sun was already -hot when Anne came down to breakfast after waking her husband and -leaving him to shave and to dress. The American ladies smiled at her as -she came into the little courtyard, bidding her: “Good morning,” and -hoping that she had passed a pleasant night. - -A pleasant night! What could she answer to them? But Anne smiled -back, and then she laughed, for she was happy to be alive, and her -skin tingled with pleasure as she took her seat carelessly under the -flowering oleander. A dog ran in from the street causing a diversion, -the cat sunning herself on the cobblestones leapt on to one of the -tables; the dog yapped, but he was in no mood for cats, and hearing his -master’s whistle he ran out again. But watching them Anne felt as much -excitement as if she had never seen a cat and a dog before. Her eyes -were still bright with interest when the waiter came up with coffee, -and he also asked if she had slept well. On the tray there were two -letters, one for her and one for Monsieur. - -The first letters for three weeks! And Anne seized hers, forwarded from -her hotel in Paris, and tore it open. It was from her father and ran as -follows: - - The Vicarage, Dry Coulter, - Huntingdonshire. - - My dear Anne, - - The news of your marriage is not such a great surprise as you - anticipated, but it is not the less welcome because I had an inkling - that what moved you to fly abroad was much the same as that which - moves the whitethroat to fly here in summer. - - Dear girl, I write strangely removed from you and the blessing I send - is a more disinterested one than parents are usually in a position to - give. My revelation has come to me late in life, but I am aware that - it has changed me greatly, so that now I find it almost impossible - to think of worldly things. However, I have packed up the old silver - teapot which was your mother’s and have had it sent to you addressed - to the Paris branch of our bank at Linton for greater safety.... - You shall have the rat-tail spoons, but one seems to be mislaid. - Your letter was the first communication for many weeks to recall me - to this transient world, and to that extent I must admit that your - marriage caused me pain. But no, I am wrong, something else has - happened since you left--a sad tragedy. - - You will remember our little angelic visitors of the dove house, - so faithful to one another and so happy as they chased the summer - flies. You will recollect the pleasure he gave us with his song, - always rather saddened, whilst she brooded over her mysteries in the - little clay cup on the joist. Old Noah had occasion to go into the - upper storey of the dove house and carelessly (for it was nothing - but carelessness) left the hatch open. I did not notice anything for - several days, then, going up myself, found the swallow dead. She must - have flown up, attracted by the light, and have beaten her life out - on the window-panes. He, poor fellow, had flown away. I pray that - neither you nor your husband should ever know his sorrow. My best - regards to the gentleman with the beautiful name, your husband. - - Your affectionate Father, - CHARLES DUNNOCK. - - P.S. It gives me peculiar pleasure to inscribe Mrs. Grandison on the - envelope. - -Anne smiled as she finished the letter, but her heart was troubled; -never before had her father been so intimate with her--never had he -revealed so much of himself. Her love for him came back to her, a -sudden shock astonishing her, for it was a love of which she had hardly -suspected the existence, while at the same moment she thought: “He can -afford to write to me like this now I am safely married and he is in no -danger of my coming back.” - -Soon her emotion passed, and she looked around her with renewed -excitement. “How lovely the blue sky and the blossom of the oleander!” -The waiter was standing beside her setting out the coffee-pot and the -milk jug, the cups and saucers, the two hot rolls, wrapped in napkins, -and the four thin bricks of lustreless sugar. She picked up her -husband’s letter and glanced at the envelope. - -“How happy it will make Grandison to have a friendly letter from -Richard!” she thought, recognizing the handwriting, and she sat -wondering if, after all the letters they had written to him and the -postcards they had sent, he still remained cold and unforgiving. - -“He loved Grandison; he cared for nobody else, and yet Grandison never -gave him any happiness and never showed him any consideration. I -cannot bear to think of his feelings after they parted in anger on my -account. But this letter must be to say that he has become reconciled -to the marriage; he would not write otherwise.” - -Richard had sent a wedding present, but when they had gone to the -studio they found it locked, and after the third or fourth fruitless -visit the _concierge_ had told them that he had gone away. - -Anne looked again at the letter, and saw that it bore an English stamp -and that the postmark was Dry Coulter; Richard must have gone home -suddenly on a surprise visit. - -“It is strange how real Dry Coulter is to me! I was unhappy while I -was living there, yet all my memories of it are beautiful, and nowhere -else in the world seems so real as that village. Are the English elms -more beautiful than the olives? Is the song of the blackbird as lovely -as Fleury’s flute? Why do I remember every detail of my life before my -marriage and nothing of the things that happen to me now? Nothing is -real to me now but Grandison, my happiness in him is such that I can -enjoy no other beauty.” - -And Anne reminded herself how she had been with him to the opera and -to students’ balls in Paris night after night, but the memory of them -was already dim, a lovely voice thrilling her for a moment, a sea of -lights, a crowd of faces. - -“I cannot keep my attention fixed on the stage,” she said to herself. -“At every moment I have to turn to glance at him, to look at his blunt -healthy features, his soft and furry hair, his round head, so like a -seal’s or an otter’s thrust suddenly above the surface of the water. -All I remember of the opera, of the picture galleries, and of the -castles which we saw yesterday, is catching Grandison’s eye to see -whether he were moved by the same things that moved me--and because of -that I felt no emotion except about him.” - -She laughed, but her happiness was coloured with the regret that her -only opportunity of seeing so many beautiful things should have been -during her honeymoon. - -“We should have been just as happy if we had stayed in that horrid room -with the beautiful view.” And Anne recalled how they had spent their -first days held in a web of unrealities, making declarations, mumbling -affidavits before a consul, handing telegrams through wire netting, and -patiently waiting for permission to get married. “Days vague and as -impossible to remember as the waving of weeds seen through water,” she -said. But Sir John, who had cut off his son’s allowance while he was -living in Paris with Richard Sotheby, had been pleased at the marriage -and had sent a cable with his blessing and a thousand pounds from -Ceylon.... And dismissing the past, Anne paused for a moment to wonder -what their life would be like in the future. Grandison had consented to -live in London and to take the job his father had offered him in the -tea business. - -“How long he is, dressing!” she exclaimed, and jumping up she ran up -the yellow stairs to their bedroom. - -She had forgotten to take Richard’s letter with her, but it was the -first thing she spoke of. - -“You’ve been using my powder puff,” she added, for his shaven cheek was -delicious with scent. - -“Stingy! Stingy! If there is anything I hate it’s stinginess!” he -exclaimed, embracing her again. She fought with him but was overcome; -they laughed, but their laughter changed suddenly to the seriousness of -love-making. - -“What a devil you are, Anne, slipping out of bed like a mouse without -waking me until the moment you were going down to breakfast.” - -“It is difficult to wake you,” she answered. “And I always feel a -criminal when I do.” - -“You are a sly hypocrite. But I vowed I would not come downstairs this -morning until you had come up again to find me. You see your tricks -don’t work.” - -“For all you know I might have gone out with the American ladies.” - -“I should have stayed here all day.” - -“We are scandal enough as it is in this hotel,” she answered. - -“Just as we were at Dijon.” - -“If you will go down alone to breakfast, naturally you cause a scandal. -People think something dreadful must have happened. They see that you -care nothing for me, Anne. Love means nothing to you.” - -Her looks were a sufficient answer to his reproaches, and he was silent -as she seized him and bent over him. - -“Keep still,” she whispered. Looking up, Grandison could see the -ceiling of the darkened room striped with bars of light from the -upturned slats of the shutters. Outside, the sunlight poured into the -grilling street; an electric tram passed by, its passage announced -by the swishing of overhead wires and followed by the crackling of -electric sparks. Wrapped in the weakness of love, Anne and Grandison -lay at each other’s mercy; each tiny movement was agony to them. - -“Keep still! Keep still!” A cry broke from their lips, and then, in -the solitude of perfect unity, they fell asleep. The overhead wires -swished, an electric tram lurched past the hotel on grinding wheels, -above which the soft crackle of electricity came like the sound of a -silk skirt. Already the American ladies had left the hotel, the waiter -in the courtyard had cleared away the cold coffee and the uneaten -rolls; the forgotten letter had been handed in at the manager’s office; -the chambermaid had looked through the keyhole and had gone away to -wash vegetables in the kitchen, before either husband or wife spoke. - -“What time is the bus?” he asked, girding his silk trowsers with a sash. - -“In five minutes!” screamed Anne, looking at the gold wrist watch that -Richard Sotheby had given her. Grandison seized his pocket-book and -cigarettes, they snatched up their Panama hats and fled down the cool -staircase with its smell of varnish and of glue, out into the baking -heat of the street. - -There was no taxi to be seen and no tram. - -“Run!” he cried, and they ran, though the air came hot to the mouth and -the sun slashed through their silk shirts, scorching their shoulders. -They were late, but the char-a-banc had waited for them, and when -Grandison had cried out: “No breakfast!” it waited while he rushed into -the station buffet and came back with a bottle of sweet champagne, -a long roll of bread and a green water-melon. They sat in the front -seats, and the oilcloth cushions ran with their clean sweat, while they -were drinking champagne out of the palms of their hands and spilling it -over their knees as the heavy car lurched and bumped on the road. They -laughed, and the melon juice ran over their chins and into their ears; -they spoke their thoughts aloud heedless of the American ladies and the -party of English school-teachers behind them, and the whole char-a-banc -of twenty people was united by the happiness of watching them. Looking -at the outlines of their shoulders, everyone was moved to a gay, -slightly tipsy sentimentality; the discomfort of a whole day’s jolting, -of being a school-teacher and wearing stays, or a double-breasted -waistcoat and starched collars and side-whiskers, all such ills -passed unnoticed. As for the lovers, they paid no attention to their -companions and scarcely even looked at the sights they had come to see. -Strolling through the Roman theatre and the bull-ring at Arles, they -made silly jokes about asparagus, and on the way home broke into their -first quarrel, Anne maintaining that a cigale was a grasshopper, while -Grandison reiterated that it was a sedentary dragonfly with a beetle’s -body. - -“A letter for you, Sir,” said the porter as they entered the hotel, and -they looked at each other in embarrassment, wondering how they could -have come to forget Richard’s letter. A word from him meant so much -to both of them! But recollecting how it was that they had so nearly -missed the bus that morning, they broke out laughing. - -“Bad news,” said Grandison, his face changing suddenly. “Richard’s -father, the grocer, has gone bankrupt. The worst is that I cannot help -feeling I have had my share in causing it by my cursed extravagance. -Richard paid for everything for me, and for Ginette.” As he said this -his face flushed scarlet. - -“It is more likely to be the hotel,” said Anne. - -“Yes, that is what Richard says, and then there is a message about your -father,” he added, handing her the letter. His face was still flushed, -but the first feeling of shame had passed into one of anger with the -outside world that threatened to break in upon his happiness. - - Dry Coulter. - - Dear Seal, - - Why do you and Anne send me so many postcards? I ask because I got - six yesterday; very disturbing when I am doing my best to forget you. - “Let the dead bury their dead.” What does that mean? Perhaps I have - got the phrase wrong, but for some reason though I don’t understand - what it means I find it expresses my feelings. - - So don’t send me any more postcards. I shall think of you and Anne - quite as much as you deserve, and I shall want to see you directly - you come back to England. - - You ask me what I think of your compact with your father, and your - giving up painting. I have no opinion about it: you must settle your - own affairs as you think best. If you mean: do I think you would have - been a good painter if you went on, I don’t. But I think you might - have eventually done something else, I mean something serious, and - badly as I think of you I still believe you capable of something - better than being a tea-merchant in Mincing Lane. That seems to me a - frivolous waste of time. One only has one life. - - I have plenty to distract me here: my father has involved himself - in a tiresome disaster. He has gone bankrupt with no assets but an - unfinished hotel with water-logged foundations, which would have - flooded every winter. He has taken to his bed with a bad heart - attack, and I have spent a hectic fortnight finding out the exact - position. Meanwhile I have arranged for a show in Bond Street, and - have got a commission to paint a portrait. I am setting up in London. - The only drawback is that England always gives me indigestion. My - mother is quite unmoved by the bankruptcy. - - Please tell Anne that I haven’t seen her father, but from what I can - hear his position is much more serious. He has given up taking the - services in church, and people think that he is definitely odd. The - vicarage certainly looks odd; he wouldn’t open the door to me. I - think Anne ought to come down as soon as possible. I will do what I - can but I have got my hands full just now. - - Rachel sends her love; she is a pretty creature. I shall have to - begin to think about sending her to Newnham in a year or two. There: - I know you can’t help your character (a bad one) any more than I can - help mine, so don’t let’s think of our characters and don’t send me - any more postcards or letters. - - Au Revoir, - RICHARD. - - P.S. Ginette has got the job she meant for Anne, as a mannequin - _style anglais_. She writes to me _every day_. Whose fault is that? - -Anne crumpled the letter in her hand; she did not feel shame or anger -as her husband had done; she had no irritation against the outside -world but only pity. As she followed her husband to the stairs her -mind was busy with plans for returning to England. She thought of her -father, of the old grocer lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and of -Mrs. Sotheby. - -“All the same, we were right to send Richard all those postcards; he -would have been more unhappy without any news of us.” Grandison was -stamping about the room in a rage. - -“It means no more to me than a famine in China,” he said. - -“We had better pack our things; we shall have to go home to-morrow,” -answered Anne. - -In the train the outside world became once more “like the waving of -weeds seen through water,” a series of noises, smells, and movements -which concerned them little, and they did not speak of the future until -they were on the boat, when Anne said: “Let’s deal with our affairs -separately: while you are arranging with your father’s firm I will go -down to Dry Coulter.” - -Grandison nodded, and realizing that the cliffs before him were indeed -those of Dover, that an interview with his uncle and his elder brother -awaited him, and that his father would be back in England in a few -days, a bitter regret seized him that he had ever seen Anne. - -“Love for this woman is ruining my life,” he said to himself, but when -he turned his head and he found himself gazing into her pale, fierce, -happy face, he understood that he was helpless. He looked at his wife’s -short straw-coloured hair, her intense grey eyes and her slim body, and -listening to her abrupt speech he told himself that everything else was -unimportant. - -“I am glad I didn’t buy a bicycle,” said Anne. She had been thinking -for a moment of the past. - - - - -SIXTEEN: ANGELS - - -The train reached Linton station at last, and Anne leaped out of the -stuffy carriage, all the weariness of her long wait at Cambridge -forgotten in the excitement of seeing again what she had so often seen -before. She could not hide the eagerness in her voice as she handed her -bag to the porter, asking him to give it to the carrier. - -“Well, Miss, are you glad to be back?” he asked, recognizing her. - -“Yes, of course I am,” she answered, and smiling with surprise she made -her way across the market place. - -Linton was unchanged, and she was filled with joy and gratitude to the -little town, believing that it could never alter in the future and not -reflecting that it was scarcely three months since she had set off with -even greater excitement on her way to France in the belief that she -would never see Linton again. - -She walked on, and turned down Bridge Street, rejoicing to see the -signs over the shops and the faces of the shopmen who were standing in -their doorways looking out for the last customers before closing--all -familiar things and persons. On the crest of the bridge she paused and -looked back, thinking that on the morrow she would have met Grandison -at the station and would be walking with him through the streets of -the old town. A lorry coming towards her filled the bridge, and she -took shelter in one of the angles of the parapet. Looking down over the -side, she watched the waters of the Ouse slipping away from the masonry -of the piers, and hoped that she would see a fish, but no fish showed -itself, and when she lifted her eyes she was startled by the sight of -an addition to the landscape, the beginnings, surely, of Mr. Sotheby’s -hotel. There was a huge hole excavated by the edge of the river, filled -with muddy water, a mound of blue clay, an ordered pile of white glazed -bricks, a few wheelbarrows upside down, a lot of drain-pipes and -nothing else. - -“So perish all innovations!” Anne exclaimed, and recollecting how -the old grocer had talked to her three months before, and seeing his -tragedy before her, she began to laugh. - -“I wonder if Richard laughed when he saw that hole full of water? Yes, -to be sure he did, for we all laugh at our parents, we understand them -so well,” but, her thoughts turning suddenly to her own father, she -sighed in despair and walked on. - -She had scarcely left the bridge when she caught sight of the grocer -himself. He was sitting bolt upright, driving his flea-bitten white -pony, his head thrown back, and his white beard sticking out in front -of him. “Like a billy-goat looking up to Heaven,” thought Anne. “Yet he -is like Richard too, he has the same foxy nose.” - -“Good evening, Mr. Sotheby,” she called out. The pony had dropped to -a walk as she spoke, but the old man’s eye fell stonily on her and he -made no answer to her greeting. When he had passed, Anne looked after -him in doubt whether she had been deliberately ignored or had not -been recognized, or perhaps not even heard, and she saw that the old -dog-cart had been lately repainted and newly varnished; on the back was -written in scarlet letters: - - “INTERNATIONAL TEA TRUST.” - -“He looks ill,” she thought. “And his illness is that his pride has -been wounded. He has been so virtuous and so successful all his life, -it is too bad that Grandison and Ginette, and excavating a hole in a -river bank, should have combined to ruin him.” She smiled as she said -this, but her thought was broken suddenly by the reflection that her -own father was waiting for her and that in less than an hour they would -be speaking together. Trouble would be sure to arise between them at -once, and each of them would behave with falsity. And reluctant to come -to her journey’s end, unconsciously she dropped into a slower walk. - -The road was long and dusty, and she was glad to turn aside into the -footpath by the cross-roads, a footpath that was little frequented, -for it was half a mile longer than the road. The first field was so -huge that it seemed she would never cross it; there was not a tree on -which she could rest her eyes and nothing in it except the tussocky -grass underfoot and a dozen thirsty bullocks clustering round an empty -cistern by the gate, waiting for the water-cart. A field of ripening -wheat lay next, and she pushed her way down the narrow lane between -the ears, unable to resist snatching at some of them. The grains were -still full of milk, yet there was something dry even in their juiciness -which made her clear her throat and wish for a cup of tea. Already she -could see the elms of Dry Coulter, and she pushed on, getting at last -into the next field, where there were men at work with teams of horses -harrowing and rolling the dusty earth. - -“It is likely enough that these are the men and the horses that came -to our doorstep in the snow,” she said, and soon she had crossed to the -far side, where a line of men, bent up double, were strung out across -the field. But so big was the expanse that rollers and harrows, men and -teams of horses and this string of men dibbling, were so far away that -she could not see their faces, and felt as though she were alone. - -“They are planting cabbages,” she guessed. “Each man leans forward -to make a hole with the dibber in his right hand, sticks in a young -plant and treads it firm with his left heel as he passes in his stride -forward to strike the next hole. So they work all day, and this will be -a vast expanse of cabbages before the winter. The life of these men is -to labour all day in the sun, or in the rain, in these immense fields, -alone for hour after hour, with nothing to speak with but horse, and -to go back at night to sleep in a tiny room with a candle burning in -the closed window, then to rise again with the first colour of the -dawn. That is the life that the greater number have always led, yet it -has hardly touched our thoughts and we live on their labour, drinking -the milk and swallowing the buttered toast, thinking of anything -rather than of how the cows are kept fat and the thistles and docks -are spudded out to make room for the wheat, for there is nothing in -all that labour, or in all those lives, to interest us. The labourers -themselves are silent about it; there are few songs which take mangels -or potatoes as their subject, and when we look for poetry in the fields -we turn south to Italy or Greece and the goats nibbling at the vines.” - -The footpath had been ploughed up, its last traces had disappeared -beneath the harrow and the roller, and she walked carefully among the -young cabbage plants, withering and grey after the long day’s sun. They -looked dead, but they would live. - -“They would die in a garden unless they were shaded under flower-pots, -but everything lives in the fields; perhaps the air is purer under the -open sky,” thought Anne. - -As she crossed into the next field a bird flew out of a poplar tree by -the stream. “A hawk,” was her first thought, but it surprised her by -calling “Cuckoo” as it flew. - -“He ought to have changed his tune a month ago. ‘In July he gets ready -to fly; in August, go he must.’ Go he must, go he must,” she repeated, -and the sentence in her father’s letter came back into her mind in -which he had compared her to a whitethroat. - -“Indeed he was right, for I was under the same compulsion to go as -the birds, but my going was harder. At least I fancy so, though the -young swallows find it a difficult business to leave England, staying a -week or two after the old birds have gone.” And Anne was surprised at -herself for thinking of the birds with pleasure: in the past she had -found her father’s love for them so irritating. - -“I remember that I wished for a bird for my hat, yet in Paris where -I could have worn it, the suggestion would have disgusted me. There, -where I was going to the opera, I was always thinking of the birds, and -the one beautiful thing that I shall never forget is the shout of the -birds’ song with which one is woken on a March morning. And how they -sing after the rain.” She laughed at the contradiction in herself which -had made her love in Paris what had so much bored her in England. - -“Yet within an hour of my meeting with my father I shall be wishing the -cats good hunting,” she added smiling. - -“How will he greet me, I wonder?”--a question which had been repeated -so often that it made her ill with apprehension. - -“What are the troubles that await me?” She was already at Dry Coulter; -the elms rose up before her, and when she had crossed the last field -the path would lead her through the churchyard and on to the green. The -last field had been cut and the last of the hay was being carried, a -little boy drove a clicking horse-rake across her path and, pulling a -lever, dropped a thin roll of the last gleanings of hay at her feet; -farther on two women were raking up the wisps of hay into heaps and a -boy was pitching it into a red tumbril where another boy gathered it -into his arms and trod it underfoot, after which the old mare was led -on to the next heap. - -Anne could see that the hard work was done, that they were enjoying -themselves playing at hay-making, clearing up what the men had left -behind. Soon she was out of the hay-field, slipping over the wall of -the churchyard, a wall which had been worn smooth by the breeches of -generations of labourers, for a short cut to the footpath ran among the -graves beneath the limbs of the giant sycamore. She had never liked -the tree, sharing her father’s jealousy for the little church so far -overtopped by it and so overshadowed in summer. If it had not been part -of the rookery he would have had it cut down. The nests were hidden now -in the leaves, and as she looked up into the tree an old fancy came -back into her mind and she said: “The sycamore is like Ely Cathedral, -so cool and so airy; to hop from one branch to another must be like -sitting first on one chair and then on another; the pigeons shorten -wing and alight to rest a while before they continue their voyages, -just as the tourists come in and sit for a few moments before they -motor on to Cambridge or King’s Lynn.” - -As she passed the porch she stopped with a new curiosity to read the -notices, in the past she had so often written them herself, but the -notice which caught her eye brought back all her apprehensions: - - -NOTICE - - Owing to the continued indisposition of the vicar, arrangements have - been made for morning service to be held every Sunday by the Reverend - J. Grasstalk and the Reverend the Honourable F. H. G. L. à Court - Delariver, alternately, until further notice. - - F. LAMBERT } - H. BOTTLE } _Churchwardens_. - -“That means that father will lose his living unless I can persuade -him.... I shall have to write to the Bishop. Perhaps if he took a -holiday....” Anne hurried on and her spirits rose, for the worst had -not happened. She had feared that she would find an inhibition. She -opened the lychgate and went out on to the green, passing beneath the -elms. There was the little stream, and there lay the old monument and -the maze, but her thoughts of her father were dispersed by catching -sight of a jumble of yellow derricks, of caravans and steam engines on -the green. - -“Dry Coulter feast!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “Why, it must begin -to-morrow! Here are the swing-boats and the roundabouts; here are the -showmen and the gipsies.” She hurried forward, excited and yet annoyed -that her home-coming had chanced to be on the eve of so momentous an -occasion as the village feast. “Timed to fall between the hay-making -and the harvest,” she said to herself. “Richard would tell me that the -feast is as much a pagan custom as Plough Monday or May-day. Each of -the villages about here has its feast, and they come one after another -in the height of summer. They are feasts at which there is little -feasting, only a roundabout and swing-boats on the green, but to-morrow -the village girls will dance and the men roll up their shirtsleeves and -try their strength and run in hurdle races, or win coconuts or a cup -and saucer.” - -Under the elms and the beeches the canvas booths were already -standing, five or six men were working hard to put up the swings, women -were carrying pails of water, and the horses, still in their harness, -were roaming over the green and cropping the grass. All the travelling -people and even their children were working hard; they shouted to each -other as they ran to and fro without sparing a glance for the groups of -village children, the boys following them and getting in their way, the -girls standing and gazing, or sitting close by in the grass. Among one -of the groups, sitting and lying on the grass, Anne recognized a friend -as she drew nearer. - -“Rachel,” she called, and the little girl looked up at once, but she -hesitated for a moment before rising to her feet and, though she came -to meet her, Anne noticed that she walked slowly where a few months -before she would have run. The child’s shyness caused a like shyness -in Anne herself, and they stood facing each other without kissing or -shaking hands. - -“Thank you very much for the postcards you sent me, Mrs. Grandison,” -said Rachel. “Richard gave me all the postcards you and Mr. Grandison -sent him and I have put them all in my album.” - -“I wish you could have seen some of the places we went to, Rachel. A -great river, the Rhone, rushes down between the vineyards, and there -are castles and wonderful old towns,” said Anne, and for a little while -she chattered of what she had seen abroad, but ended by saying: “I see -they are getting ready for the feast. We went to a wonderful circus at -Avignon. I thought of you, Rachel, when I saw it. Grandison won a live -pigeon as a prize, for which we had no home, so we let it fly from the -bridge over the river. It beat its wings and flew crazily this way and -that, but at last it lifted itself and disappeared over the battlements -into the town. Have you been to any circuses since we went to Linton -Fair together?” - -There was a look of defiance in the child’s face and a hard note in her -shrill voice. Her face was paler than ever, but dark under the eyes. - -“No, I haven’t been to a circus there, Mrs. Grandison. Richard wanted -to take me to the feast at Wet Coulter but I wouldn’t go.” - -“You’ll enjoy the feast here to-morrow, won’t you?” - -“Yes, I shall enjoy the Dry Coulter feast, Mrs. Grandison,” answered -Rachel. - -“Come part of the way home with me,” said Anne. - -“I’ll come to the edge of the green.” - -They walked for a little while in silence. - -“You have had your hair cut, Rachel. Was that Richard’s doing?” - -The little girl blushed scarlet, she hung her head and seemed on the -point of bursting into tears. Anne cursed herself for her unfortunate -question. “The child must have got creatures in her head; I should have -remembered the village better,” but she was mistaken in her thought, -for when Rachel spoke it was to say: “I heard that you had your hair -cut off, Mrs. Grandison.” - -Anne took off her hat. “Yes,” she said. “It is shorter than yours. Did -Richard tell you that?” Their eyes met; Rachel had recovered herself. -“I am going to let it grow again,” she said defiantly. “Father doesn’t -like it short.” She stopped to kick a stone viciously out of her path. - -On hearing Mr. Sotheby spoken of, Anne felt strangely embarrassed, and -to turn the conversation she asked: “How is your mother? Will you tell -her that I am back and that I shall come round to the shop to see her -as soon as I can?” - -“Mother is not in the shop now,” replied Rachel almost rudely. - -They had reached the edge of the green, and the little girl stopped -short, motionless and stubborn, by the little bridge. - -“Mother is never in the shop now, nor am I. Father is made the -manager, and there is a man under him learning to take his place.” - -“Is Richard here or in London?” Anne asked. “My husband spent a day -looking for him but couldn’t find him.” - -“Richard’s busy.” This time the rudeness in the child’s voice was -unmistakable, and there was a pause whilst Anne looked down into the -pale face working with passion. The little girl was trying hard to keep -back her tears. - -“I’m to go to school at Cambridge. Richard says I am to get a -scholarship to go to college.” - -“Come a little farther and tell me about it,” said Anne. - -Rachel’s emotion upset her, and she was tired of standing still. - -“No, I must go back now.” The little girl was still uneasy, and shifted -from foot to foot. - -“Well, I daresay we shall meet to-morrow,” said Anne, disappointed. She -was reluctant to let Rachel go, wanting to find an excuse for delaying -her own arrival at the vicarage. - -“Let’s go to the feast to-morrow and ride on the roundabout together,” -she said. - -Rachel lifted a pale face and gazed at her angrily; two tears ran -unheeded down her cheeks and she answered with indignation. - -“No, you won’t be stopping here long”; then, without waiting for an -answer or to say good-bye, she ran back on to the village green. When -she had gone a little way she dropped into a walk and soon stopped. -She was not in the mood to rejoin her companions; watching the gipsies -would no longer interest her, and as soon as Anne had turned the corner -Rachel slowly followed in her footsteps. - -The rays of the sun were horizontal, and the last strip of turf by -the Broad Ditch was striped with the shadows of the elms, the darkest -and the most brilliant greens; on the water a crowd of ducklings were -swimming eagerly in all directions, in and out of the sunlight; in -another half-hour the dew would begin to fall and the little owls would -come out to hoot at the cats. Anne turned to look back. Behind her the -lower branches of the elms were already in shadow, their tops shone in -the sunlight; between the trunks she could see a glimpse of the village -green beyond, with the yellow painted roof of a roundabout. There was a -silence and suddenly Anne gave a long sigh, a sigh of happiness. - -“I am happy now and completely at peace. I was never happy here before, -but I am now, for I am free. The opinion of neighbours cannot weigh -on me, for my life is full and happy and satisfied. Each day is rich -and full, and though summer passes it returns again. There are better -years coming than any of the years which are past, and the leaves will -always drop in November and spring afresh in May.” - -The figure of Rachel came into view, and Anne saw the child stop. - -“Well, now I must see my father,” she said to herself, shrugging her -shoulders, a trick she had caught from Grandison; then she turned -towards the vicarage, and swinging her arms and shaking her bare head, -she walked forward. From a distance the vicarage was black against the -sunset, but as she came abreast of it, she saw it clearly, the old -familiar building, strangely like a Noah’s ark, with a chimney at each -end. But the moment that she glanced at it Anne stopped short. The -vicarage--it had been burnt! It was a ruin. But the hollyhocks were -standing in full flower; the roses on the wall were not scorched--and -Anne could see that there had been no fire: all that had happened was -that the windows had been taken out: there was no glass: there were no -window-sashes. - -Wire netting had been nailed across each of the down-stair windows, -but the bedroom windows were open spaces. Otherwise there was little -change; the front lawn had been mowed recently, the path had been -weeded, and round the windowless house all the rose-trees were in -bloom. - -Anne walked slowly up the pathway, noticing everything and reassured -by a hundred little details. The box-trees had been clipped. On the -doorstep she paused, uncertain whether to try the door-handle or to -ring the bell. - -“I will ring the bell,” she said to herself, lifting her eyes to see if -she were being spied upon from upstairs. Through the open windows first -one bird flew and then another, a third chased it; then, as the bell -jangled in the hall, a whole covey of sparrows flew out over her head. - -“The windows have been taken out so that the birds may fly in.” The -change seemed to her a sensible one for her father to have made. She -could hear the shuffling of footsteps inside, and at that moment the -thought flashed through her mind that if her father’s eccentricities -were become such that he could no longer be a clergyman, he would make -an admirable bird-watcher on some island sanctuary. - -“He would live alone in a hut without seeing anyone for six months of -the year, and he would be perfectly happy.” Her project filled her with -excitement; she longed to talk of it, to find out if she could put it -into execution. - -The door was flung open and her father stood before her, glaring up -at her, for the floor of the house was sunk below the level of the -garden, but he showed no sign of recognition. His cheeks were hollow, -his tangled beard full of grey hairs and his black, clerical coat was -filthy with the droppings of birds; the shoulders and sleeves seeming -as if they had been spattered over with whitewash. An unpleasant dirty -smell came through the door; in spite of ventilation the house smelled -like an old hen-coop. - -Anne waited for her father to speak, watching him silently while the -anger died out of his gaze. He coughed once or twice, blinked his eyes -as if very tired, and said at last in a mild voice: “Well, Anne, my -dear.” - -“Did you get my letter? I have come to pay you a visit, father.” - -A mischievous, slightly guilty expression came over Mr. Dunnock’s face -and he coughed again. “I am afraid I didn’t read it,” he answered. “I -hardly know if I can invite you in. You see I am living with the angels -now.” - -There was a long silence. “It was very sweet of you to write such a -kind letter about my marriage,” said Anne at last. “And to send me -Mamma’s teapot, and to tell me about the tragedy in the dove house.” - -“The swallows have come back,” said Mr. Dunnock. He spoke eagerly, and -stepping out of the house, he took his daughter by the arm and led her -round the end of the vicarage. A steel-blue bird circled over their -heads and swooped into the open door of the dove house. - -“Angels,” said Mr. Dunnock, putting a finger to his lips. “They are -angels.” - - -THE END - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GO SHE MUST! *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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