"Who, Grandmamma and Grandpapa? They're perfect darlings. So's Aunt Emily. But they're awfully old and they can't play at anything, except bridge. And it isn't the same thing at all. Besides, I don't—"
She paused. It wasn't kind to the poor things to say "I don't love them the same."
"Do you like us so awfully, then?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad you like us."
They were silent.
Up and down the flagged terrace above them Aunt Adeline and Uncle Robert walked together. The sound of his voice came to them, low and troubled.
Anne listened, "Is anything wrong?" she said. "They've been like that for ages."
"Daddy's bothered about Eliot."
"Eliot?"
"About his wanting to be a doctor."
"Is Auntie Adeline bothered?"
"No. She would be if she knew. But she doesn't think it'll happen. She never thinks anything will happen that she doesn't like. But it will. They can't keep him off it. He's been doing medicine at Cambridge because they won't let him go and do it at Bart's. It's just come out that he's been at it all the time. Working like blazes."
"Why shouldn't he be a doctor if he likes?"
"Because he's the eldest son. It wouldn't matter so much if it was only Colin or me. But Eliot ought to have the estate. And he says he won't have it. He doesn't want it. He says Daddy's got to leave it to me. That's what's worrying the dear old thing. He thinks it wouldn't be fair."
"Who to?"
Jerrold laughed. "Why, toEliot. He's got it into his dear old head that heoughtto have it. He can't see that Eliot knows his own business best. Itwouldbe most awfully in his way… It's pretty beastly for me, too. I don't like taking it when I know Daddy wants Eliot to have it. That's to say, hedoesn'twant; he'd like me to have it, because I'd take care of it. But that makes him all the more stuck on Eliot, because he thinks it's the right thing. I don't like having it in any case."
"Why ever not?"
"Well, Icanonly have it if Daddy dies, and I'd rather die myself first."
"That's how I feel about my farm."
"Beastly, isn't it? Still, I'm not worrying. Daddy's frightfully healthy, thank Heaven. He'll live to be eighty at the very least. Why—I should be fifty."
"You'reall right," said Anne. "But it's awful for me. Grandpapa might die any day. He's seventy-fivenow. It'll be ages before you're fifty."
"And I may never be it. India may polish me off long before that." He laughed his happy laugh. The idea of his own death seemed to Jerrold irresistibly funny.
"India?"
He laughed again at her dismay.
"Rather. I'm going in for the Indian Civil."
"Oh Jerrold—you'll be away years and years, nearly all the time, likeDaddy, and I shan't ever see you."
"I shan't start for ages. Not for five years. Lots of time to see each other in."
"Lots of time fornotseeing each other ever again."
She sat staring mournfully, seeing before her the agony of separation.
"Nonsense," said Jerrold. "Why on earth shouldn't you come out to India too? I say, that would be a lark, wouldn't it? You would come, wouldn't you?"
"Like a shot," said Anne.
"Would you give up your farm to come?"
"I'd give up anything."
"That'sall right. Let's go and play tennis."
They played for two hours straight on end, laughing and shouting. Adeline, intensely bored by Eliot and his absurd affairs, came down the lawn to look at them. She loved their laughter. It was good to have Anne there. Anne was so happy.
John Severn came to her.
"Did you ever see anything happier than that absurd boy?" she said. "Why can't Eliot be jolly and contented, too, like Jerrold?"
"Don't you think the chief reason may be that heisn'tJerrold?"
"Jerrold's adorable. He's never given me a day's trouble since he was born."
"No. It's other women he'll give trouble to," said John, "before he's done."
iii
Colin was playing. All afternoon he had been practising with fury; first scales, then exercises. Then a pause; and now, his fingers slipped into the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata.
Secretly, mysteriously he began; then broke, sharply, impatiently, crescendo, as the passion of the music mounted up and up. And now as it settled into its rhythm his hands ran smoothly and joyously along.
The west window of the drawing-room was open to the terrace. Eliot andAnne sat out there and listened.
"He's wonderful, isn't he?" she said.
Eliot shook his head. "Not so wonderful as he was. Not half so wonderful as he ought to be. He'll never be good enough for a professional. He knows he won't."
"What's happened?"
"Nothing. That's just it. Nothing ever will happen. He's stuck. It's the same with his singing. He'll never be any good if he can't go away and study somewhere. If it isn't Berlin or Leipzig it ought to be London. But father can't live there and the mater won't go anywhere without him. So poor Col-Col's got to stick here doing nothing, with the same rotten old masters telling him things he knew years ago…. It'll be worse next term when he goes to Cheltenham. He won't be able to practice, and nobody'll care a damn…. Not that that would matter if he cared himself."
Colin was playing the slow movement now, the grave, pure passion, pressed out from the solemn bass, throbbed, tense with restraint.
"Oh Eliot, hedoescare."
"In a way. Not enough to keep on at it. You've got to slog like blazes, if you want to get on."
"Jerrold won't, ever, then."
"Oh yes he will.He'llget on all right, because hedoesn'tcare; because work comes so jolly easy to him. He hasn't got to break his heart over it…. The trouble with Colin is that he cares, awfully, for such a lot of other things. Us, for instance. He'll leave off in the middle of a movement if he hears Jerrold yelling for him. He ought to be able to chuck us all; we're all of us in his way. He ought to hate us. He ought to hate Jerrold worst of all."
Adeline and John Severn came round the corner of the terrace.
"What's all this about hating?" he said.
"What do you mean, Eliot?" said she.
Eliot raised himself wearily. "I mean," he said, "you'll never be any good at anything if you're not prepared to commit a crime for it."
"I know what I'd commit a crime for," said Anne. "But I shan't tell."
"You needn't.You'ddo it for anybody you were gone on."
"Well, I would. I'd tell any old lie to make them happy. I'd steal for them if they were hungry. I'd kill anybody who hurt them."
"I believe you would," said Eliot.
"We know who Anne would commit her crimes for."
"We don't. We don't know anything she doesn't want us to," said Eliot, shielding her from his mother's mischief.
"That's right, Eliot, stick up for her," said John. He knew what she was thinking of. "Would Jerrold commit a crime?" he said.
"Sooner than any of us. But not for the Indian Civil. He'd rob, butcher, lie himself black in the face for anything he really cared for."
"He would for Colin," said Anne.
"Rob? Butcher and lie?" Her father meditated.
"It sounds like Jerrold, doesn't it?" said Adeline. "Absurd children. Thank goodness they don't any of them know what they're talking about…. And here's tea."
Indoors the music stopped suddenly and Colin came out, ready.
"What's Jerrold doing?" he said.
It was, as Eliot remarked, a positive obsession.
iv
Tea was over. Adeline and Anne sat out together on the terrace. The others had gone. Adeline looked at her watch.
"What time is it?" said Anne.
"Twenty past five."
Anne started up. "And I'm going to ride with Jerrold at half-past."
"Are you? I thought you were going to stay with me."
Anne turned. "Do you want me to, Auntie?"
"What do you think?"
"If you really want me to, ofcourseI'll stay. Jerry won't mind."
"You darling… And I used to think you were never going to like me. Do you remember?"
"I remember I was a perfect little beast to you."
"You were. But you do love me a bit now, don't you?"
"What do youthink?"
Anne leaned over her, covering her, supporting herself by the arms of the garden chair. She brought her face close down, not kissing her, but looking into her eyes and smiling, teasing in her turn.
"You love me," said Adeline; "but you'd cut me into little bits if it would please Jerrold."
Anne drew back suddenly, straightened herself and turned away.
"Run off, you monkey, or you'll keep him waiting. I don't want you …Wait … Where's Uncle Robert?"
"Down at the farm."
"Bother his old farm. Well—you might ask that father of yours to come and amuse me."
"I'll go and get him now. Are you sure you don't want me?"
"Quite sure, you funny thing."
Anne ran, to make up for lost time.
v
The sun had come round on to the terrace. Adeline rose from her chair.John Severn rose, stiffly.
She had made him go with her to the goldfish pond, made him walk round the garden, listening to him and not listening, detaching herself wilfully at every turn, to gather more and more of her blue flowers; made him come into the drawing-room and look on while she arranged them exquisitely in the tall Chinese jars. She had brought him out again to sit on the terrace in the sun; and now, in her restlessness, she was up again and calling to him to follow.
"It's baking here. Shall we go into the library?"
"If you like." He sighed as he said it.
As long as they stayed out of doors he felt safe and peaceful; but he was afraid of the library. Once there, shut in with her in that room which she was consecrating to their communion, heaven only knew what sort of fool he might make of himself. Last time it was only the sudden entrance of Robert that had prevented some such manifestation. And to-day, her smile and her attentive attitude told him that she expected him to be a fool, that she looked to his folly for her entertainment.
He had followed her like a dog; and as if he had been a dog her hand patted a place on the couch beside her. And because he was a fool and foredoomed he took it.
There was a silence. Then suddenly he made up his mind.
"Adeline, I'm very sorry, but I find I've got to go to-morrow."
"Go? Up to town?"
"Yes."
"But—you're coming back again."
"I'm—afraid—not."
"My dear John, you haven't been here a week. I thought you were going to stay with us till your leave was up."
"So did I. But I find I can't."
"Whyever not?"
"Oh—there are all sorts of things to be seen to."
"Nonsense, what do you suppose Robert will say to you, running off like this?"
"Robert will understand."
"It's more than I do."
"You can see, can't you, that I'm going because I must, not because I want to."
"Well, I think it's horrid of you. I shall miss you frightfully."
"Yes, you were good enough to say I amused you."
"You're not amusing me now, my dear … Are you going to take Anne away from me too?"
"Not if you'd like to keep her."
"Of course I'd like to keep her."
He paused, brooding, wrenching one of his lean hands with the other.
"There's one thing I must ask you—"
"Ask, ask, then."
"I told you Anne would care for you if you gave her time. She does care for you."
"Yes. Odd as it may seem, I really believe she does."
"Well—don't let her be hurt by it."
"Hurt? Who's going to hurt her?"
"You, if you let her throw herself away on you when you don't want her."
"Have I behaved as if I didn't want her?"
"You've behaved like an angel. All the same, you frighten me a little. You've a terrible fascination for the child. Don't use it too much. Let her feelings alone. Don't work on them for the fun of seeing what she'll do next. If she tries to break away don't bring her back. Don't jerk her on the chain. Don't—amuse yourself with Anne."
"So that's how you think of me?"
"Oh, you know how I think."
"Do I? Have I ever known? You say the cruellest things. Is there anything else I'm not to do to her?"
"Yes. For God's sake don't tease her about Jerrold."
"My dear John, you talk as if it was serious. I assure you Jerrold isn't thinking about Anne."
"And Anne isn't 'thinking' about Jerrold. They don't think, poor dears. They don't know what's happening to them. None of us know what's happening to us till it happens. Then it's too late."
"Well, I'll promise not to do any of these awful things if you'll tell me, honestly, why you're going."
He stared at her.
"Tell you? You know why. I am going forthe same reasonthat I came.How can you possibly ask me to stay?"
"Of course, if you feel like that about it—"
"You'll say I'd no business to come if I feel like that. But I knew I wasn't hurting anybody but myself. I knewyouwere safe. There's never been anybody but Robert."
"Never. Never for a minute."
"I tell you I know that. I always have known it. And I understand it. What I can't understand is why, when that's that, you make it so hard for me."
"Do I make it hard for you?"
"Damnably."
"You poor thing. But you'll get over it."
"I'm not young enough to get over it. Does it look like getting over it?It's been going on for twenty-two years."
"Oh come, not all the time, John."
"Pretty nearly. On and off."
"More off than on, I think."
"What does that matter when it's 'on' now? Anyhow I've got to go."
"Go, if you must. Do the best for yourself, my dear. Only don't say I made you."
"I'm not saying anything."
"Well—I'm sorry."
All the same her smile declared her profound and triumphant satisfaction with herself. It remained with her after he had gone. She would rather he had stayed, following her about, waiting for her, ready to her call, amusing her; but his going was the finer tribute to her power: the finest, perhaps, that he could have well paid. She hadn't been prepared for such a complete surrender.
vi
Something had happened to Eliot. He sulked. Indoors and out, working and playing, at meal-times and bed-time he sulked. Jerrold said of him that he sulked in his sleep.
Two things made his behaviour inexplicable. To begin with, it was uncalled for. Robert Fielding, urged by John Severn in a last interview, had given in all along the line. Not only had Eliot leave to stick to his medicine (which he would have done in any case), but he was to go to Bart's to work for his doctor's degree when his three years at Cambridge were ended. His father had made a new will, leaving the estate to Jerrold and securing to the eldest son an income almost large enough to make up for the loss. Eliot, whose ultimate aim was research work, now saw all the ways before him cleared. He had no longer anything to sulk for.
Still more mysteriously, his sulking appeared to be related to Anne. He had left off going for walks alone with her in the fields and woods; he didn't show her things under his microscope any more. If she leaned over his shoulder he writhed himself away; if his hand blundered against hers he drew it back as if her touch burnt him. More often than not he would go out of the room if she came into it. Yet as long as she was there he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She would be sitting still, reading, when she would be aware, again and again, of Eliot's eyes, lifted from his book to fasten on her. She could feel them following her when she walked away.
One wet day in August they were alone together in the schoolroom, reading. Suddenly Anne felt his eyes on her. Their look was intent, penetrating, disturbing; it burned at her under his jutting, sombre eyebrows.
"Is there anything funny about me?" she said.
"Funny? No. Why?"
"Because you keep on looking at me."
"I didn't know I was looking at you."
"Well, you were. You're always doing it. And I can't think why."
"It isn't because I want to."
He held his book up so that it hid his face.
"Then don't do it," she said. "You needn't."
"I shan't," he snarled, savagely, behind his screen.
But he did it again and again, as if for the life of him he couldn't help it. There was something about it mysterious and exciting. It made Anne want to look at Eliot when he wasn't looking at her.
She liked his blunt, clever face, the half-ugly likeness of his father's with its jutting eyebrows and jutting chin, its fine grave mouth and greenish-brown eyes; mouth and eyes that had once been so kind and were now so queer. Eliot's face made her keep on wondering what it was doing. Shehadto look at it.
One day, when she was looking, their eyes met. She had just time to see that his mouth had softened as if he were pleased to find her looking at him. And his eyes were different; not cross, but dark now and unhappy; they made her feel as if she had hurt him.
They were in the library. Uncle Robert was there, sitting in his chair behind them, at the other end of the long room. She had forgotten Uncle Robert.
"Oh, Eliot," she said, "have I done anything?"
"Not that I know of." His face stiffened.
"You look as if I had. Have I?"
"Don't talk such putrid rot. As if I cared what you did. Can't you leave me alone?"
And he jumped up and left the room.
And there was Uncle Robert in his chair, watching her, looking kind and sorry.
"What's the matter with him?" she said. "Why is he so cross?"
"You mustn't mind. He doesn't mean it."
"No, but it's so funny of him. He's only cross with me; and I haven't done anything."
"It isn't that."
"What is it, then? I believe he hates me."
"No. He doesn't hate you, Anne. He's going through a bad time, that's all. He can't help being cross."
"Why can't he? He's got everything he wants."
"Has he?"
Uncle Robert was smiling. And this time his smile was for himself. She didn't understand it.
vii
Anne was going away. She said she supposed now that Eliot would be happy.
Grandmamma Severn thought she had been long enough running loose with those Fielding boys. Grandpapa Everitt agreed with her and they decided that in September Anne should go to the big girls' college in Cheltenham. Grandmamma and Aunt Emily had left London and taken a house in Cheltenham and Anne was to live with them there.
Colin and she were going in the same week, Colin to his college and Anne to hers.
They were discussing this prospect. Colin and Jerrold and Anne in Colin's room. It was a chilly day in September and Colin was in bed surrounded by hot water bottles. He had tried to follow Jerrold in his big jump across the river and had fallen in. He was not ill, but he hoped he would be, for then he couldn't go back to Cheltenham next week.
"If it wasn't for the hot water bottles," he said, "Imightget a chill."
"I wish I could get one," said Anne. "But I can't get anything. I'm so beastly strong."
"It isn't so bad for you. You haven't got to live with the girls. It'll be perfectly putrid in my house now that Jerrold isn't there."
"Haven't youanyfriends, Col-Col?"
"Yes. There's little Rogers. But even he's pretty rotten after Jerry."
"He would be."
"And that old ass Rawly says I'll be better this term without Jerrold. He kept on gassing about fighting your own battles and standing on your own feet. You never heard such stinking rot."
"You're lucky it's Cheltenham," Jerrold said, "and not some other rotten hole. Dad and I'll go over on half-holidays and take you out. You and Anne."
"You'll be at Cambridge."
"Not till next year. And it isn't as if Anne wasn't there."
"Grannie and Aunt Emily'll ask you every week. I've made them. It'll be a bit slow, but they're rather darlings."
"Have they a piano?" Colin asked.
"Yes. And they'll let you play on it all the time."
Colin looked happier. But he didn't get his chill, and when the day came he had to go.
Jerrold saw Anne off at Wyck station.
"You'll look after Col-Col, won't you?" he said. "Write and tell me how he gets on."
"I'll write every week."
Jerrold was thoughtful.
"After all, there's something in that idea of old Rawlings', that I'm bad for him. He's got to do without me."
"So have I."
"You're different. You'll stand it, if you've got to. Colin won't. And he doesn't chum up with the other chaps."
"No. But think of me and all those awful girls—after you and Eliot" (she had forgotten Eliot's sulkiness) "and Uncle Robert. And Grannie and Aunt Emily after Auntie Adeline."
"Well, I'm glad Col-Col'll have you sometimes."
"So'm I… Oh, Jerrold, here's the beastly train."
It drew up along the platform.
Anne stood in her carriage, leaning out of the window to him.
His hand was on the ledge. They looked at each other without speaking.
The guard whistled. Carriage doors slammed one after another. The train moved forward.
Jerrold ran alongside. "I say, you'll let Col-Col play on that piano?"
Anne was gone.
i
"'Where have you been all the day, Rendal, my son?Where have you been all the day, my pretty one?…'"
Five years had passed. It was August, nineteen ten.
Anne had come again. She sat out on the terrace with Adeline, whileColin's song drifted out to them through the open window.
It was her first day, the first time for three years. Anne's calendar was blank from nineteen seven to nineteen ten. When she was seventeen she had left Cheltenham and gone to live with Grandpapa Everitt at the Essex farm. Grandpapa Everitt wanted her more than Grandmamma Severn, who had Aunt Emily; so Anne had stayed with him all that time. She had spent it learning to farm and looking after Grandpapa on his bad days. For the last year of his life all his days had been bad. Now he was dead, dead three months ago, and Anne had the farm. She was going to train for five years under the man who had worked it for Grandpapa; after that she meant to manage it herself.
She had been trying to tell Aunt Adeline all about it, but you could see she wasn't interested. She kept on saying "Yes" and "Oh" and "Really"? in the wrong places. She never could listen to you for long together, and this afternoon she was evidently thinking of something else, perhaps of John Severn, who had been home on leave and gone again without coming to the Fieldings.
"'I've been to my sweetheart, mother, make my bed soon,For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down…'"
Mournful, and beautiful, Colin's song came through the windows, and Anne thought of Jerrold who was not there. He was staying in Yorkshire with some friends of his, the Durhams. He would be back to-morrow. He would have got away from the Durhams.
…"'make my bed soon…'"
To-morrow. To-morrow.
"Who are the Durhams, Auntie?"
"He's Sir Charles Durham. Something important in the Punjaub. Some high government official. He'll be useful to Jerrold if he gets a job out there. They're going back in October. I suppose I shall have to ask. Maisie Durham before they sail."
Maisie Durham. Maisie Durham. But to-morrow he would have got away.
"'What will you leave your lover, Rendal, my son?What will you leave your lover, my pretty one?A rope to hang her, mother,A rope to hang her, mother, make my bed soon,For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.'"
"Sing something cheerful, Colin, for Goodness sake," said his mother.But Colin sang it again.
"'A rope to hang her'"
"Bless him, you'd think he'd known all the wicked women that ever were.My little Col-Col."
"You like him the best, don't you?"
"No. Indeed I do not. I like my laughing boy best. You wouldn't catchJerry singing a dismal song like that."
"Darling, you used to say Colin was your favourite."
"No, my dear. Never. Never. It was always Jerrold. Ever since he was born. He never cried when he was a baby. Colin was always crying."
"Poor Col-Col."
"There you are. Nobody'll ever say, 'Poor Jerrold'. I like happy people,Anne. In this tiresome world it's people's duty to be happy."
"If it was, would they be? Don't look at me as if I wasn't."
"I wasn't thinking of you, ducky… You might tell Pinkney to takeallthose tea-things off the terrace and put thembackinto the lounge."
ii
The beech-trees stood in a half ring at the top of the highest field. Jerrold had come back. He and Anne sat in the bay of the beeches, looking out over the hills.
Curve after curve of many-coloured hills, rolling together, flung off from each other, an endless undulation. Rounded heads carrying a clump of trees like a comb; long steep groins packed with tree-tops; raking necks hog-maned with stiff plantations. Slopes that spread out fan-wise, opened wide wings. An immense stretching and flattening of arcs up to the straight blue wall on the horizon. A band of trees stood up there like a hedge.
Calm, clean spaces emerging, the bright, sharp-cut pattern of the fields; squares and fans and pointed triangles, close fitted; emerald green of the turnips; yellow of the charlock lifted high and clear; red brown and pink and purple of ploughed land and fallows; red gold of the wheat and white green of the barley; shimmering in a wash of thin air.
Where Anne and Jerrold sat, green pastures, bitten smooth by the sheep, flowed down below them in long ridges like waves. On the right the bright canary coloured charlock brimmed the field. Its flat, vanilla and almond scent came to them.
"What's Yorkshire like?"
"Not a patch on this place. I can't think what there is about it that makes you feel so jolly happy."
"But you'd always be happy, Jerrold, anywhere."
"Not like that. I mean a queer, uncanny feeling that you sort of can't make out."
"I know. I know… There's nothing on earth that gets you like the smell of charlock."
Anne tilted up her nose and sniffed delicately.
"Fancy seeing this country suddenly for the first time," he said.
"There's such a lot of it. You wouldn't see it properly. It takes ages just to tell one hill from another."
He looked at her. She could feel him meditating, considering.
"I say, I wonder what it would feel like seeing each other for the first time."
"Not half so nice as seeing each other now. Why, we shouldn't remember any of the jolly things we've done: together."
He had seen Maisie Durham for the first time. She wondered whether that had made him think of it.
"No, but the effect might be rather stunning—I mean of seeingyou."
"It wouldn't. And you'd be nothing but a big man with a face I rather liked. I suppose I should like your face. We shouldn'tknoweach other, Jerrold."
"No more we should. It would be like not knowing Dad or Mummy or Colin.A thing you can't conceive."
"It would be like not knowing anything at all … Of course, the best thing would be both."
"Both?"
"Knowing each other and not knowing."
"You can't have it both ways," he said.
"Oh, can't you! You don't half know me as it is, and I don't half know you. We might both do anything any day. Things that would make each other jump."
"What sort of things?"
"That's the exciting part of it—we wouldn't know."
"I believe youcould, Anne—make me jump."
"Wait till I get out to India."
"You're really going?"
"Really going. Daddy may send for me any day."
"I may be sent there. Then we'll go out together."
"Will Maisie Durham be going too?"
"O Lord no. Not with us. At least I hope not … Poor little Maisie, I was a beast to say that."
"Is she little?"
"No, rather big. But you think of her as little. Only I don't think of her."
They stood up; they stood close; looking at each other, laughing. As he laughed his eyes took her in, from head to feet, wondering, admiring.
Anne's face and body had the same forward springing look. In their very stillness they somehow suggested movement. Her young breasts sprang forwards, sharp pointed. Her eyes had no sliding corner glances. He was for ever aware of Anne's face turning on its white neck to look at him straight and full, her black-brown eyes shining and darkening and shining under the long black brushes of her eyebrows. Even her nose expressed movement, a sort of rhythm. It rose in a slender arch, raked straight forward, dipped delicately and rose again in a delicately questing tilt. This tilt had the delightful air of catching up and shortening the curl of her upper lip. The exquisite lower one sprang forward, sharp and salient from the little dent above her innocent, rounded chin. Its edge curled slightly forward in a line firm as ivory and fine as the edge of a flower. As long as he lived he would remember the way of it.
And she, she was aware of his body, slender and tense under his white flannels. It seemed to throb with the power it held in, prisoned in the smooth, tight muscles. His eyes showed the colour of dark hyacinths, set in his clear, sun-browned skin. He smiled down at her, and his mouth and little fawn brown moustache followed the tilted shadow of his nostrils.
Suddenly her whole body quivered as if his had touched it. And when she looked at him she had the queer feeling that she saw him for the first time. Never before like that. Never before.
But to him she was the same Anne. He knew her face as he knew his mother's face or Colin's. He knew, he remembered all her ways.
And this was not what he wanted. He wanted some strange wonder and excitement; he wanted to find it in Anne and in nobody but Anne, and he couldn't find it. He wanted to be in love with Anne and he wasn't. She was too near him, too much a part of him, too well-known, too well-remembered. She made him restless and impatient, looking, looking for the strangeness, the mystery he wanted and couldn't find.
If only he could have seen her suddenly for the first time.
iii
It was extraordinary how happy it made her to be with Aunt Adeline, walking slowly, slowly, with her round the garden, stretched out beside her on the terrace, following her abrupt moves from the sun into the shade and back again; or sitting for hours with her in the big darkened bedroom when Adeline had one of the bad headaches that attacked her now, brushing her hair, and putting handkerchiefs soaked in eau-de-cologne on her hot forehead.
Extraordinary, because this inactivity did violence to Anne's nature; besides, Auntie Adeline behaved as if you were uninteresting and unimportant, not attending to a word you said. Yet her strength lay in her inconsistency. One minute her arrogance ignored you and the next she came humbly and begged for your caresses; she was dependent, like a child, on your affection. Anne thought that pathetic. And there was always her fascination. That was absolute; above logic and morality, irrefutable as the sweetness of a flower. Everybody felt it, even the servants whom she tormented with her incalculable wants. Jerrold and Colin, even Eliot, now that he was grown-up, felt it. As for Uncle Robert he was like a young man in the beginning of first love.
Adeline judged people by their attitude to her. Anne, whether she listened to her or not, was her own darling. Her husband and John Severn were adorable, Major Markham of Wyck Wold and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, who admired her, were perfect dears, Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, who didn't, was that silly old thing. Resist her and she felt no mean resentment; you simply dropped out of her scene. Thus her world was peopled with her adorers.
Anne couldn't have told you whether she felt the charm on its own account, or whether the pleasure of being with her was simply part of the blessed state of being at Wyck-on-the-Hill. Enough that Auntie Adeline was there where Uncle Robert and Eliot and Colin and Jerrold were; she belonged to them; she belonged to the house and garden; she stood with the flowers.
Anne was walking with her now, gathering roses for the house. The garden was like a room shut in by the clipped yew walls, and open to the sky. The sunshine poured into it; the flagged walks were pale with heat.
Anne's cat, Nicky, was there, the black Persian that Jerrold had given her last birthday. He sat in the middle of the path, on his haunches, his forelegs straight and stiff, planted together. His face had a look of sweet and solemn meditation.
"Oh Nicky, oh you darling!" she said.
When she stroked him he got up, arching his back and carrying his tail in a flourishing curve, like one side of a lyre; he rubbed against her ankles. A white butterfly flickered among the blue larkspurs; when Nicky saw it he danced on his hind legs, clapping his forepaws as he tried to catch it. But the butterfly was too quick for him. Anne picked him up and he flattened himself against her breast, butting under her chin with his smooth round head in his loving way.
And as Adeline wouldn't listen to her Anne talked to the cat.
"Clever little thing, he sees everything, all the butterflies and the dicky-birds and the daddy-long-legs. Don't you, my pretty one?"
"What's the good of talking to the cat?" said Adeline. "He doesn't understand a word you say."
"He doesn't understand the words, he says, but he feels the feeling …He was the most beautiful of all the pussies, he was, he was."
"Nonsense. You're throwing yourself away on that absurd animal, for all the affection you'll get out of him."
"I shall get out just what I put in. He expects to be talked to."
"So do I."
"I've been trying to talk to you all afternoon and you won't listen. And you don't know how you can hurt Nicky's feelings. He's miserable if I don't tell him he's a beautiful pussy the minute he comes into my room. He creeps away under the washstand and broods. We take these darling things and give them little souls and hearts, and we've no business to hurt them. And they've such a tiny time to live, too… Look at him, sitting up to be carried, like a child."
"Oh wait, my dear, till youhavea child. You ridiculous baby."
"Oh come, Jerrold's every bit as gone on him."
"You're a ridiculous pair," said Adeline.
"If Nicky purred roundyourlegs, you'd love him, too," said Anne.
iv
Uncle Robert was not well. He couldn't eat the things he used to eat; he had to have fish or chicken and milk and beef-tea and Benger's food. Jerrold said it was only indigestion and he'd be all right in a day or two. But you could see by the way he walked now that there was something quite dreadfully wrong. He went slowly, slowly, as if every step tired him out.
"Sorry, Jerrold, to be so slow."
But Jerrold wouldn't see it.
They had gone down to the Manor Farm, he and Jerrold and Anne. He wanted to show Jerrold the prize stock and what heifers they could breed from next year. "I should keep on with the short horns. You can't do better," he said.
Then they had gone up the fields to see if the wheat was ready for cutting yet. And he had kept on telling Jerrold what crops were to be sown after the wheat, swedes to come first, and vetch after the swedes, to crowd out the charlock.
"You'll have to keep the charlock down, Jerrold, or it'll kill the crops. You'll have the devil of a job." He spoke as though Jerrold had the land already and he was telling him the things he wanted him to remember.
They came back up the steep pasture, very slowly, Uncle Robert leaning on Jerrold's arm. They sat down to rest under the beech-trees at the top. They looked at the landscape, the many-coloured hills, rolling together, flung off from each other, an endless undulation.
"Beautiful country. Beautiful country," said Uncle Robert as if he had never seen it before.
"You should seemyfarm," Anne said. "It's as flat as a chess-board and all squeezed up by the horrid town. Grandpapa sold a lot of it for building. I wish I could sell the rest and buy a farm in the Cotswolds. Do you ever have farms to sell, Uncle Robert?"
"Well, not to sell. To let, perhaps, if a tenant goes. You can have the Barrow Farm when old Sutton dies. He can't last long. But," he went on, "you'll find it very different farming here."
"How different?"
"Well, in some of those fields you'll have to fight the charlock all the time. And in some the soil's hard. And in some you've got to plough across the sun because of the slope of the land… Remember, Jerrold, Anne's to have the Barrow Farm, if she wants it, when Sutton dies."
Jerrold laughed. "My dear father, I shall be in India."
"I'll remind you, Uncle Robert."
Uncle Robert smiled. "I'll tell Barker to remember," he said. Barker was his agent.
It was as if he were thinking that when Sutton died he might not be there. And he had said that Sutton wouldn't last long. Anne looked at Jerrold. But Jerrold's face was happy. He didn't see it.
They left Uncle Robert in the library, drinking hot water for tea.
"Jerrold," Anne said, "I'm sure Uncle Robert's ill."
"Oh no. It's only indigestion. He'll be as right as rain in a day or two."
Anne's cat Nicky was dying.
Jerrold struggled with his sleep, pushing it back and back before him, trying to remember.
There was something; something that had hung over him the night before.He had been afraid to wake and find it there. Something—.
Now he remembered.
Nicky was dying and Anne was unhappy. That was what it was; that was what he had hated to wake to, Anne's unhappiness and the little cat.
There was nothing else. Nothing wrong with Daddy—only indigestion. He had had it before.
The room was still dark, but the leaded squares of the window lattices barred a sky pale with dawn. In her room across the passage Anne would be sitting up with Nicky. He remembered now that he had to get up early to make her some tea.
He lit a candle and went to her door to see if she were still awake. Her voice answered his gentle tapping, "Who's there?"
"Me. Jerrold. May I come in?"
"Yes. But don't bring the light in. He's sleeping."
He put out the candle and made his way to her. Against the window panes he could see the outline of her body sitting upright in a chair. She glimmered there in her white wrapper and he made out something black stretched straight and still in her lap. He sat down in the window-seat and watched.
The room was mysterious, full of dusk air that thinned as the dawn stirred in it palpably, waking first Anne's white bed, a strip of white cornice and a sheet of watery looking-glass. Nicky's saucer of milk gleamed white on the dark floor at Anne's feet. The pale ceiling lightened; and with a sliding shimmer of polished curves the furniture rose up from the walls. Presently it stood clear, wine-coloured, shining in the strange, pure light.
And in the strange, pure light he saw Anne, in her white wrapper with the great rope of her black hair, plaited, hanging down her back. The little black cat lay in her white lap, supported by her arm.
She smiled at Jerrold strangely. She spoke and her voice was low and strange.
"He's asleep, Jerry. He kept on looking at me and mewing. Then he tried to climb into my lap and couldn't. And I took him up and he was quiet then. I think he was pleased that I took him … I've given him the morphia pill and I don't think he's in pain. He'll die in his sleep."
"Yes. He'll die in his sleep."
He hardly knew what he was saying. He was looking at Anne, and it was as if now, at last, he saw her for the first time. This, this was what he wanted, this mysterious, strangely smiling Anne, this white Anne with the great plaited rope of black hair, who belonged to the night and the dawn.
"I'm going to get you some tea," he said.
He went down to the kitchen where everything had been left ready for him over-night. He lit the gas-ring and made the tea and brought it to her with cake and bread and butter on a little tray. He set it down beside her on the window-seat. But Anne could neither eat nor drink. She cried out to him.
"Oh, Jerry, look at him. Do you think he's dying now?"
He knelt down and looked. Nicky's eyes were two slits of glaze between half-shut lids. His fur stood up on his bulging, frowning forehead. His little, flat cat's face was drawn to a point with a look of helpless innocence and anguish. His rose-leaf tongue showed between his teeth as he panted.
"Yes. I'm awfully afraid he's dying."
They waited half an hour, an hour. They never knew how long. Once he said to her, "Would you rather I went or stayed?" And she said, "Stayed, if you don't mind."
Through the open window, from the fields of charlock warm in the risen sun, the faint, smooth scent came to them.
Then Nicky began to cough with a queer quacking sound. Jerrold went to her, upsetting the saucer as he came.
"It's his milk," she said. "He couldn't drink it." And with that she burst into tears.
"Oh, Anne, don't cry. Don't cry, Anne darling."
He put his arm round her. He laid his hand on her hair and stroked it. He stooped suddenly and kissed her face; gently, quietly, because of the dead thing in her lap.
It was as if he had kissed her for the first time.
For one instant she had her arm round his neck and clung to him, hiding her face on his shoulder. Then suddenly she loosed herself and stood up before him, holding out the body of the little cat.
"Take him away, please, Jerry, so that I don't see him."
He took him away.
All day the sense of kissing her remained with him, and all night, with the scent of her hair, the sweet rose-scent of her flesh, the touch of her smooth rose-leaf skin. That was Anne, that strangeness, that beauty of the clear, cold dawn, that scent, that warm sweet smoothness, that clinging of passionate arms. And he had kissed her gently, quietly, as you kiss a child, as you kiss a young, small animal.
He wanted to kiss her close, pressing down on her mouth, deep into her sweet flesh; to hold her body tight, tight, crushed in his arms. If it hadn't been for Nicky that was the way he would have kissed her.
To-morrow, to-morrow, he would kiss Anne that way.
i
But when to-morrow came he did not kiss her. He was annoyed with Anne because she insisted on taking a gloomy view of his father's illness.
The doctors couldn't agree about it. Dr. Ransome of Wyck said it was gastritis. Dr. Harper of Cheltenham said it was colitis. He had had that before and had got better. Now he was getting worse, fast. For the last three days he couldn't keep down his chicken and fish. Yesterday not even his milk. To-day, not even his ice-water. Then they both said it was acute gastritis.
"He's never been like this before, Jerrold."
"No. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to get better. People with acute gastritis do get better. It's enough to make him die, everybody insisting that he's going to. And it's rot sending for Eliot."
That was what Anne had done.
Eliot had written to her from London: 10 Welbeck St.,Sept. 35th, 1910.
My dear Anne:
I wish you'd tell me how Father really is. Nobody but you has any intelligence that matters. Between Mother's wails and Jerrold's optimism I don't seem to be getting the truth. If it's serious I'll come down at once.
Always yours,
Eliot.
And Anne had answered:
My dear Eliot,
Itisserious. Dr. Ransome and Dr. Harper say so. They think now it's acute gastritis. I wish you'd come down. Jerrold is heart-breaking. He won't see it; because he couldn't bear it if he did. I know Auntie wants you.
Always very affectionately yours,
Anne.
She addressed the letter to Dr. Eliot Fielding, for Eliot had taken his degree.
And on that to-morrow of Jerrold's Eliot had come. Jerrold told him he was a perfect idiot, rushing down like that, as if Daddy hadn't an hour to live.
"You'll simply terrify him," he said. "He hasn't got a chance with all you people grousing and croaking round him."
And he went off to play in the lawn tennis tournament at Medlicote as a protest against the general pessimism. His idea seemed to be that if he, Jerrold, could play in a lawn tennis tournament, his father couldn't be seriously ill.
"It's perfectly awful of Jerrold," his mother said. "I can't make him out. He adores his father, yet he behaves as if he hadn't any feeling."
She and Anne were sitting in the lounge after luncheon, waiting forEliot to come from his father's room.
"Didn't youtellhim, Anne?"
"I did everything I know…. But darling, he isn't unfeeling. He does it because he can't bear to think Uncle Robert won't get better. He's trying to make himself believe he will. I think he does believe it. But if he stayed away from the tournament that would mean he didn't."
"If onlyIcould. But I must. Imustbelieve it if I'm not to go mad. I don't know what I shall do if he doesn't get better. I can't live without him. It's been so perfect, Anne. It can't come to an end like this. It can't happen. It would be too cruel."
"It would," Anne said. But she thought: "It just will happen. It's happening now."
"Here's Eliot," she said.
Eliot came down the stairs. Adeline went to him.
"Oh Eliot, what do you think of him?"
Eliot put her off. "I can't tell you yet."
"You think he's very bad?"
"Very."
"But you don't think there isn't any hope?"
"I can't tell yet. There may be. He wants you to go to him. Don't talk much to him. Don't let him talk. And don't, whatever you do, let him move an inch."
Adeline went upstairs. Anne and Eliot were alone. "Youcantell," she said. "You don't think there's any hope."
"I don't. There's something quite horribly wrong. His temperature's a hundred and three."
"Is that bad?"
"Very."
"I do wish Jerry hadn't gone."
"So do I."
"It'll be worse for him, Eliot, than for any of us when he knows."
"I know. But he's always been like that, as long as I can remember. He simply can't stand trouble. It's the only thing he funks. And his funking it wouldn't matter if he'd stand and face it. But he runs away. He's running away now. Say what you like, it's a sort of cowardice."
"It's his only fault."
"I know it is. But it's a pretty serious one, Anne. And he'll have to pay for it. The world's chock full of suffering and all sorts of horrors, and you can't go turning your back to them as Jerrold does without paying for it. Why, he won't face anything that's even a little unpleasant. He won't listen if you try to tell him. He won't read a book that hasn't a happy ending. He won't go to a play that isn't a comedy… It's an attitude I can't understand. I don't like horrors any more than he does; but when I hear about them I want to go straight where they are and do something to stop them. That's what I chose my profession for."
"I know. Because you're so sorry. So sorry. But Jerry's sorry too. So sorry that he can't bear it."
"But he's got to bear it. There it is and he's got to take it. He's only making things worse for himself by holding out and refusing. Jerrold will never be any good till hehastaken it. Till he's suffered damnably."
"I don't want him to suffer. I don't want it. I can't bear him to bear it."
"He must. He's got to."
"I'd do anything to save him. But I can't."
"You can't. And you mustn't try to. It would be the best thing that could happen to him."
"Oh no, not to Jerry."
"Yes. To Jerry. If he's ever to be any good. You don't want him to be a moral invalid, do you?"
"No… Oh Eliot, that's Uncle Robert's door."
Upstairs the door opened and shut and Adeline came to the head of the stairs.
"Oh Eliot, come quick——"
Eliot rushed upstairs. And Anne heard Adeline sobbing hysterically and crying out to him.
"I can't—I can't. I can not bear it!"
She saw her trail off along the gallery to her room; she heard her lock herself in. She had every appearance of running away from something. From something she could not bear. Half an hour passed before Eliot came back to Anne.
"What was it?" she said.
"What I thought. Gastric ulcer. He's had a haemorrhage."
That was what Aunt Adeline had run away from.
"Look here, Anne, I've got to send Scarrott in the car for Ransome. Then he'll have to go on to Cheltenham to fetch Colin."
"Colin?" This was the end then.
"Yes. He'd better come. And I want you to do something. I want you to drive over to Medlicote and bring Jerrold back. It's beastly for you. But you'll do it, won't you?"
"I'll do anything."
It was the beastliest thing she had ever had to do, but she did it.
From where she drew up in the drive at Medlicote she could see the tennis courts. She could see Jerrold playing in the men's singles. He stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was turned to her as he stood.
She heard him shout. She heard him laugh. She saw him turn to come up the court, facing her.
And when he saw her, he knew.
ii
He had waited ten minutes in the gallery outside his father's room. Eliot had asked Anne to go in and help him while Jerrold stood by the door to keep his mother out. She was no good, Eliot said. She lost her head just when he wanted her to do things. You could have heard her all over the house crying out that she couldn't bear it.
She opened her door and looked out. When she saw Jerrold she came to him, slowly, supporting herself by the gallery rail. Her eyes were sore with crying and there was a flushed thickening about the edges of her mouth.
"So you've come back," she said. "You might go in and tell me how he is."
"Haven't you seen him?"
"Of course I've seen him. But I'm afraid, Jerrold. It was awful, awful, the haemorrhage. You can't think how awful. I daren't go in and see it again. I shouldn't be a bit of good if I did. I should only faint, or be ill or something. I simply can not bear it."
"You mustn't go in," he said.
"Who's with him?"
"Eliot and Anne."
"Anne?"
"Yes."
"Jerrold, to think that Anne should be with him and me not."
"Well, she'll be all right. She can stand things."
"It's all very well for Anne. He isn'therhusband."
"You'd better go away, Mother."
"Not before you tell me how he is. Go in, Jerrold."
He knocked and went in.
His father was sitting up in his white, slender bed, raised on Eliot's arm. He saw his face, strained and smoothed with exhaustion, sallow white against the pillows, the back-drawn-mouth, the sharp, peaked nose, the iron grey hair, pointed with sweat, sticking to the forehead. A face of piteous, tired patience, waiting. He saw Eliot's face, close, close beside it by the edge of the pillow, grave and sombre and intent.
Anne was crossing the room from the bed to the washstand. Her face was very white but she had an air of great competence and composure. She carried a white basin brimming with a reddish froth. He saw little red specks splashed on the sleeve of her white linen gown. He shuddered.
Eliot made a sign to him and he went back to the door where his mother waited.
"Is he better?" she whispered. "Can I come in?"
Jerrold shook his head. "Better not—yet."
"You'll send for me if—if—"
"Yes."
He heard her trailing away along the gallery. He went into the room. He stood at the foot of the bed and stared, stared at his father lying there in Eliot's arms. He would have liked to have been in Eliot's place, close to him, close, holding him. As it was he could do nothing but stand and look at him with that helpless, agonized stare. Hehadto look at him, to look and look, punishing himself with sight for not having seen.
His eyes felt hot and brittle; they kept on filling with tears, burned themselves dry and filled again. His hand clutched the edge of the footrail as if only so he could keep his stand there.
A stream of warm air came through the open windows. Everything in the room stood still in it, unnaturally still, waiting. He was aware of the pattern of the window curtains. Blue parrots perched on brown branches among red flowers on a white ground; it all hung very straight and still, waiting.
Anne looked at him and spoke. She was standing beside the bed now, holding the clean basin and a towel, ready.
"Jerrold, you might go and get some more ice. It's in the bucket in the bath-room. Break it up into little pieces, like that. You split it with a needle."
He went to the bath-room, moving like a sleepwalker, wrapped in his dream-like horror. He found the ice, he broke it into little pieces, like that. He was very careful and conscientious about the size, and grateful to Anne for giving him something to do. Then he went back again and took up his station at the foot of the bed and waited. His father still lay back on his pillow, propped by Eliot's arm. His hands were folded on his chest above the bedclothes.
Anne still stood by the bed holding her basin and her towel ready. From time to time they gave him little pieces of ice to suck.
Once he opened his eyes, looked round the room and spoke. "Is your mother there?"
"Do you want her?" Eliot said.
"No. It'll only upset her. Don't let her come in."
He closed his eyes and opened them again.
"Is that Anne?"
"Yes. Who did you think it was?"
"I don't know…I'm sorry, Anne."
"Darling—" the word broke from a tender inarticulate sound she made.
Then: "Jerrold—," he said.
Jerrold came closer. His father's right arm unfolded itself and stretched out towards him along the bed.
Anne whispered, "Take his hand." Jerrold took it. He could feel it tremble as he touched it.
"It's all right, Jerry," he said. "It's all right." He gave a little choking cough. His eyes darkened with a sudden anxiety, a fear. His hand slackened. His head sank forward. Anne came between them. Jerrold felt the slight thrust of her body pushing him aside. He saw her arms stretched out, and the white gleam of the basin, then, the haemorrhage, jet after jet. Then his father's face tilted up on Eliot's arm, very white, and Anne stooping over him tenderly, and her hand with the towel, wiping the red foam from his lips.
Then eyes glazed between half-shut lids, mouth open, and the noise of death.