CHAPTER IIIFINISHING

CHAPTER IIIFINISHING“HOWminute we are.”“Why?”“Well, this does not seem to be a time of great feelings, perhaps we have had too many of them lately. And we are so small compared to the trees. Gods come and go, but trees remain. By ‘small’ I don’t mean ‘in height.’ They seem to me so lasting, so grave in their fat green cloaks, or in winter like naked lace.”“There, an’ I’ve forgotten to feed the chickens.”“We are so petty, while time in the towns rolls by on well-oiled wheels with horrible efficiency. The machinery there goes on and on, and there are bits of it that are not right. The most horrible injustices.”“There’s no justice.”“No, there is no justice.”A long way beneath something in the town was dropped with a clang, while a tug coming up the river whistled to get through the lock, a long shriek which shivered through the trees. Birds circled in specks round the Abbey tower. There was nowind and on the hill smoke from a cottage fire drifted straight up towards the blue sky, for the sun was shining. Just in front, in the meadow by the edge of the wood, a rabbit was feeding quietly, trembling at being alive. And they sat together against a tree, he with his head on one side to catch what was going on, and she dozing, with the world drifting in and out of her mind.“I hate this easy life with the millions toiling there.”“I don’t find it easy.”“No, I suppose not. But I will do something, even if I am blind.”She pulled a wisp of hair away from her face and rearranged the ragged scarf about her neck.“I expect you will, John.”“Do you think so?”“Yes, I do.”A confused shouting came from the lock, into which the barges were being packed. Several dogs were barking at each other while men ran about. The rabbit sat up and listened.“John, there’s a darling rabbit out there,” and the rabbit fled.“Oh?”“He’s gone now.”“Oh?”And they were silent. From the other side of the wood a ploughman cried to his horses. Thenfrom in front came a rattling of machinery and the lock gates creaked, painfully slow.“Why are you so silent to-day, John?”“I must go, I must go away.”“What do you mean, away from here?”“No, to the towns.”“Yes, I know. You do want to get off sometimes. So do I. Minnie is getting very tiresome, he’s been making messes all over the house, an’ father does hate messes. I really don’t know what to do.”“What is Minnie?”“Our cat.”“Why do you give him a female name?”“I don’t know. Father always calls him she. Father hates cats.”She had told him this before.“An’ Father’s so nervy nowadays, you don’t know what to do with him. It gets harder and harder to live there at all. Father spends so much money on—on small things we don’t need. There often isn’t enough to eat an’ . . .”He heard a train snort in the distance like a dragon, and the wood round reared itself in tall crowding shapes and dark images. A voice droned complaint and he saw a little figure at the foot of an image throwing words at the things which hemmed her in.“. . . but he doesn’t care, he never thinks of me, it’s me who has always to be thinking of him, howto keep him alive, how to keep the home round his head, how to manage so’s he won’t starve. Always thinking of him, I am, and he with never a thought to me.”“Poor June.”“Yes, it is poor June. You don’t know what it is with your easy life down there. There’s times when you don’t know if your own life’s safe when the fit is on him, he’s so dangerous.”“June, he doesn’t attack you?”“Attack me? If you could see my—the bruises on my arm, you simply wouldn’t believe. And he was brought to it.”“I must go away.”“It wasn’t his fault.”“We ought all to go away for a time. The country is poisoning us, June. Under all the smiles that one hears and the soft kindness that one sees at first, there is so much cruelty. We will go.”“They brought him to it.”“It’s all so different in the towns, there is so much more going on.”“But I don’t want any more to go on. I’ve got enough as it is.”“I’m so sorry.”“Oh, it’s all right. If it wasn’t for Father’s being as he is, it wouldn’t be bad. He’s worse than usual just now, and he won’t have you do anything for him.”“We shall never do any good in the country.What is the use of staying down here? I ought to go away.”“But how can we?”We? How awkward!“I shall never do any writing down here. It’s no good, one can’t.”“No, I don’t suppose so.”“Does nothing ever happen in the country?”“Well, I don’t know that you have much to complain of, poor darling.”“What, you mean going blind like that? Yes, I had forgotten. Except for that, then, nothing has happened. Sometimes I see a pool shut in by trees with their branches reflected in the stagnant water. Nothing ever moves, the pool just lies there, day and night, and the trees look in. At long intervals there is a ripple; the pool lets it die. And then the trees look in the same as before.”“Funny John.”“I may be, but that is the country.”“D’you know how I live in that house where there’s everything to clean, and with not a soul to help me, mind you, with a man that throws anything away, anywhere, an’ the chickens to feed and the meals to cook?”“There would be food to prepare and boards to scrub in towns.”“Oh, I know there would, but we could have a gay time there, what with dancing an’ nice dresses an’ everything.”“Oh yes, we could have a gay time there.”How different this was to the first time he had sat at the top with her a fortnight ago. Only two weeks and so many things had happened.“You will take me, won’t you, John darling?”“Yes.”Let in for it this time.“But I can’t leave Father.”“But I thought you said you wanted to go.”“I wanted to make sure of you. Besides, why can’t I make believe?”“Don’t you want to go with me, then?”“Yes. But I can’t leave Father, he wouldn’t be able to do anything without me. Poor Father, he’s helpless, you know. He must have someone to look after him. And anyway you’ld have gone off.”“June, why do you say that?”“They always do. There was a story I read calledThe Love of White Hope.The young man in that left his girl whom he had promised to marry, and she committed suicide, which was stupid, and he was so sorry that he drank water for the rest of his life, or something, I forget, which was stupider still. Yes, that was it, he used to drink in his young days, and then after that he gave it up. He was lovely when he was young. You would never take me with you.”“But I asked you to come.”“Did you?”“I said you could.”“But you never meant me to.”“Yes, I did.”“I know you didn’t.”“Why don’t you come, anyway? It will not be for long, probably.”“Shall I?”A cow bugled dejectedly. He thought that the neck would be stretched out with the mouth half open as though it were going to vomit. Idiotic cows.“No, I can’t leave Father.”“Well, don’t say now that I didn’t ask you.”“But you never meant me to go.”Another cow answered from a long way off, and they exchanged dull grief across the hedges and the meadows. The hedges would be black at this time of the year, and the trees bare. The plough creaked leisurely, how slow everything was.“I’m not blaming you. You’re not the sort that are meant to stay. Your sort can get rid of anything that displeases them, as Father says.”“June, do come.”“No.”“Then I don’t see what you have to complain of from me.”“Poor John.”“It’s not as if you are going to have a baby or anything.”“Don’t.”“Well, is it?”“You don’t understand.”There was a long pause.“Oh, to be in a town again, to hear a barrel-organ, for instance, across the street through gaps in the traffic! And all the rush there, and the thousands of people. I’d give anything to be there and just listen, so much would be going on, while here . . .”“I couldn’t leave Father, could I, now?”“No, perhaps not. But I think it is really fine of you to stay with him, I really do.”“Fine? I don’t know about that.”“Well, I mean, if he attacks you. And he has not done a great deal for you.”“It isn’t his fault—besides, I won’t have you say things like that about him. Anyway I shouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for him.”“I am sorry. I did not mean that. Certainly I have much to be grateful to him for.”“Why, how do you mean?”“For your being here.”“Nice John.”Why had he made a compliment like that? And why had she swallowed it?“What will you do, June?”“I don’t know.”She never knew, perhaps that was the best. But he was beginning to.“Well, remember, if ever you want to run away, come up to London and stay with us. We have not yet arranged to go to London; that is, I have noteven broached the subject with Mamma, but I must go, and in the end she and I will go. So just you come when you want.”“I will. An’ may I bring Father too?”“But—but yes, if you think he needs it.”“I know you. An’ what’s wrong with Father? He’s nothing to be ashamed of. You think I don’t notice the way people pass us as if we weren’t there when they meet us on the road. It’s not his fault his being what he is. He was brought to it, and by your lot too.”“June, what do you mean?”“They were always criticising him—d’you suppose I don’t know how it was?—always carping away at him till his life wasn’t his own and as if it didn’t belong to him and no one else, and not to everyone as they thought, and finding fault with Mother for being in love with the postman, of course it was wrong, but why shouldn’t she, and them saying that he didn’t do his duty to his parish when he was worth the whole crew of them put together.”“But June . . .”“Oh, I’m not blaming you, don’t be frightened. But it was your lot that brought him to it, it . . .”These scenes. And after all, flirting with the postman, it was unfortunate, and a squalid story. Now the man was so soaked in the whisky, or whatever it was he drank, that he was a topic of conversation. For that alone one ought to be gratefulto him. But Mamma was right for once, it was disgraceful. But it was sad too.“. . . poor, poor Father.”“Yes, June, I am so sorry.”“You aren’t really.”There was a pause, and then he said:“I think perhaps suffering is rather fine, don’t you?”Was it? He did not know. At any rate, it was a way out of blindness. She began again:“But why wasn’t I allowed to wear nice dresses and stay in the Vicarage and go to dances an’ have some fun? Why have I got to scrub floors all day and cook meals and look after the house with never a word of thanks? It isn’t fair.”“But you and I are really rather lucky . . .”“Lucky! You . . .?”His face, that awful face. He didn’t know what scars he had, poor boy. You couldn’t say anything to him, with his blindness an’ all.“. . . but notlucky, John.”“I can’t express myself. And I cannot understand how you endure your life if you don’t see the fineness in its being as it is.”“Endure it? Why, it just goes on. Oh, John, you will take me with you, won’t you?”“What is going to happen to Mr. Entwhistle, then?”“I can’t leave Father.”“Does he want to go to the towns?”“No, he says that would be running away, I don’t know what from, though.”“You couldn’t leave him, June.”“No.”“But you will one day.”“How do you mean? When he dies? Oh no, he mustn’t die.”“I wish you saw that about suffering.”What could one say to her? If one was in her position and did not make it into something, it was not worth its own unpleasantness, that must be so. So that if she was too small to understand, she had much better go on the streets and have a good time on and off, if she could get it in no other way. She could not come to London with him, even if they went there, for she would only be unhappy. He could never introduce her to his friends, if he educated her she would only be genteel. Her value was her brutality, and she would lose that. Besides, there was the Shame, who was a fool from all accounts, almost an idiot. But you couldn’t let her go back to him in this frame of mind, it was waste. And what would she do when the old man died?—not that he was old, either, but quite young. Probably marry a commercial traveller. He would talk to Mamma. Oh, he was tired, tired.There was a roar in the distance.“June, what was that?”“It’s a football match on the Town ground. Norbury are playing Daunton to-day, so Mrs. Donnertold me. She has a son that plays, wonderful they say he is.”“That must have been a goal, then. Or a foul.”“Oh, John, you mustn’t go.”“Where?”“Why, to London, of course. What shall I do?”A huge voice came as a whisper from across the river. “’ere!” it said, frenziedly, “’ere!” And another roar overwhelmed it, then a shrill whistle, and silence.“It is no good, June, I must go. And June must go too, if there is anything in a name. Think of your August, and of how exciting that will be. It will come right one day.”“Will it?”“You see, you cannot leave your Father; what would he come to? It is your duty to stand by him. It is good for one, too.”How unpleasant it was giving this sort of good advice. She ought to stay down here, from every point of view it was best that she should. And when the man died he would see what could be done. Yes, he really would.“We will write to each other, June, and everything will seem better to-morrow.”“It won’t.”“Yes, it will. Poor June. But think, we have had one good time anyway, you and I, haven’t we? There is one good thing behind us anyway, isn’t there?”“Don’t go, don’t go-o.”God, she was weeping. Well, that had finished it, he could not go. Poor June, and what a beast he was.“All right, June, I won’t go. It’s all right, June, I’m not going. I’m not going, June, so it’s all right.”“I’m so mis-erable.”“But I am not going.”“It’s” (sniff) “not that.”“Aren’t you glad I am not going?”“No. Yes.”“Well, then?”Why did one always talk baby-talk to someone who was crying?“There, June, are you better now?”“Yes.” Sniff. “The chickens’ll be starving.” Sniff. “I’d better go home.”“Oh, you must not go home yet. June, I love you so.”“Do you?” Sniff.“Yes, I . . .”“But, John, I think you’d better go to London, after all. It’ll be better for you there. I was only crying because of everything. I’m better now . . .”What did she mean? What was in her mind? What was this, what was this?“. . . fond of me, and I must help Father with his book, his wonderful book which will come out next year, we’re hoping. An’ you’ll go to Londonand do whatever you’re going to do there, I know you will. I expect you will be a great man one day. There’s the chickens. I’ve got to feed them an’ look for eggs, too, for supper. Shall I walk you back or can you get home alone now? For I’ve got to hurry.”“No, I can get back alone all right by the roads. But, June, don’t go like this. What does it mean,—I mean how do you . . .?”“Oh, you go to London. Father an’ I’ve got the book to write. He’ll show you all what a mistake you made. So long, John.”“Good-bye, Joan.”Another roar came from the football crowd, an angry sound. A dog had been barking monotonously for ever so long.“But, June,” he shouted, to the wood, “June, what do you—June, I—June . . .”But there was no answer, and he began feeling his way down the ride. How strange it all was, what could she mean? One’s head felt in an absolute turmoil, one didn’t know what to think.He felt ill.*****Heavy clouds lay above the house, mass upon mass. From the garden rose a black tangle of branches with showers of wandering twigs. And on these would hang necklaces of water-drops caught from the rain, shining with a dull light.Over the river in the dark pile of wood there showed frightened depths of blue, untrusting patches of it, lying here and there. The grass on the lawn was sodden, beaten to a lake of pulp. But over everything was a freshness of morning and of rain that had gone by, and there was a feeling that the trees and the house and the sky were washed, and that this day was yet another page, that there were more to be, so quiet it was.She came down the stairs, pausing at the hole on the ninth step, and entered the kitchen, a song on her lips. The room was filled with a wet, grey light that made it kind, and she was happy, so that she thought of sweeping the floor. Father had been much better lately, those pains of his had gone, and perhaps he had been drinking less. How would he be to-day? It was not good for him, all the gin he drank, but he could not help it. How nice it was this morning. She was sleepy, so sleepy. A wonderful dream last night, about a young man who had made love to her, with blue eyes. Poor John. But it was dusty in here. She went to the cupboard under the stairs and took out the broom.The broom swept a wrinkle of dust across the floor, with matches and crumpled paper and dried mud thrusting along together in it. She hummed contentedly and thought about her poor John. Her poor John who had no eyes. Blindness would be a terrible thing to come upon you, and he was so brave about it, always talking as if it were nothing.You couldn’t help liking that in him. Oh, it was so wonderful this morning, and he was wonderful too. He was a gentleman, just as they themselves were for that matter, it was birth that counted, besides he hadn’t treated her as anything else but the same as himself. But there was no going on with him. It wasn’t as if times weren’t difficult enough just with her own set of troubles, his into the bargain were too much. Though if she had gone with him it would have been a score over Mrs. Donner. And what would have become of Father then? He had been so much better lately, quite different from what he had been before. Where was Minnie? And she hustled the dust through the door, driving it into the air in a fan-shaped cloud till it settled on the grass round the flakes of mud and the paper and matches which sat there taking a first look round.Now there was no nonsense about George. How those cows did eat, all day long, and when they weren’t eating they were chewing over again. And George had been quite nice lately. He had even said something, rather surly and rude, and she had been rude back. At any rate it was a beginning. Funny George, he was so powerful, his hands looked as if they could hurt you so, not like John with that awful face always screwed up with his scars; you were frightened of him in a horrid way. John was clever right enough, but there wasn’t much to those clever ones. While George could do anything with those hands. The beech tree looked very bigthis morning, with the damp lying on his trunk in sticky patches. But the weather was clearing, and it felt so fresh this morning. There were the chickens to feed. Roses, roo-zez, all the way.Getting some grain out of a cupboard in the kitchen, she went to the hut and let the chickens out. The cock was quiet and dignified this morning, rather sleepy. But as soon as he was in the yard he challenged the world and then scratched over a stone. The hens at once began to bustle about anxiously. When June scattered the grain they hurried to each fresh handful, while the cock asserted himself in the intervals of eating. She laughed at them as she always did, and cried “Chuck, chuck,” and they clucked back with choking voices.She sauntered away and stood looking at the trees over the river. There had been a new man on the milk lorry yesterday, which was exciting. He had such a nice smile, and all for her as she leant over the gate. He would be going by again about half-past two, she would be there. Perhaps he had come for good, and had taken the place of the one with the wicked face. He had had two lives, that one. But the new man was a dream, with fair, fair hair and his blue eyes that danced. It was nice to have somebody new. There was a lot new to-day.Funny how sometimes you suddenly saw everything different. The chickens looked just like old women going round to tea-parties, and the cocklike that old Colonel who used to call Father “Padre.” They were well out of that. That was John’s life, and—well, he was done with, anyway. Three weeks and not a word, but then that was like him. Probably there would be three letters one after the other in a week’s time, he was all moods. Nice the way the wind blew the sleep from off you.Father’s voice from the window: “Is breakfast ready?”“In a minute.”“Oh, it’s all right. Don’t hurry.”“I won’t.”Oh, why was she so happy to-day? And he was too, you could tell by his voice, he never spoke like that unless things were going well. She hugged her arms. The way that hawk hovered. Where was Minnie?She called: “Minnie, Minnie.”He would turn up in a minute or two. He was always coming from nowhere, so to speak. You looked down and there he was, rubbing his back against your leg, quite uncanny it was.She turned and went back into the house. There was Father coming downstairs.“Breakfast isn’t ready yet. I’ve had no time.”“That’s all right. Let’s go out.”“It’s fine,” he said, “this morning, fine.”They walked in silence along the path smothered in weeds. The dripping undergrowth was shining.A sparrow chirped. And there, suddenly, was Minnie.“Oh, Minnie.”“So she has come out too. I don’t hate her so much to-day. Puss, puss.”Darling Minnie, so sleek, and looking rather frightened of Father, the cold eyes watched him so closely. Webs of moisture clung to Minnie’s coat, making such a brave show, pearls on black velvet.“Minnie.”And he lifted a paw.“Never mind, leave her alone. We’ve interfered with her hunting. Anyway she’ll want to be killing. Come on.”That was a good sign, Father not making a fuss when he saw him. His head was redder than usual, too.“What about this Haye?”“Oh, we parted.”“Parted” had such a wonderful feel about it, and it had been so quiet. They had just said “good-bye.”“Good thing too.”“He was quite nice.”“I don’t think much of that house.”They walked on, round and round the old lawn. She had a fluttering inside.“How did you know, Father?”“Mrs. Haye wrote.”“Wrote? What to say?”“That you were going out with him. What business was it of hers, what you were about?”“She wrote to you?”“Damn them all. But you would have done well to have married him. It meant money.”“But I couldn’t leave you.”“Very good of you.”She felt a kind of clearness, she saw her way. She was much, much happier than ever. She took his arm, but he seemed so uncomfortable that she let it go again.“What’ll you do, d’you think?”“Stay here.”“But you can’t always do that, you know. You’d better go away.”“Where to?”“But you’ll marry some day.”“No, I’ll stay with you.”He pressed her arm. This time she did not try to press his, he was so shy.“And there’s your book to write.”“Yes, my book.”There was a pause, and then he went on:“I tell you what, I’ll fix up that hen-run to-day. But then there is no rabbit wire, and it is so expensive. Oh, well.”“They’re just as well as they are. Look, Minnie has just pounced.”“I must go and have a drop of something.”“Why not give it up for a bit?”“Oh no, can’t give it up, does one good, you know.”“Then I’ll get breakfast ready.”He went through the kitchen and into his room while she began leisurely putting out the breakfast things. A sheet of chill winter sunlight lay on the floor, and some of it was spilled over the window frame as well. She dabbled her feet in it and it came up to her knees. In her hand was the teapot, and, in the other, half a loaf of bread. There came the sound of a cork being drawn in the next room, which sent a shiver pleasurably down her spine. It got rather dull here when he knocked off the drink. But still, it was bad for him. Turning, she put the things down on the table and then went over to the cupboard.A cough came from the next room. Then the door opened and he came through, a faint flush over his face, and went out of doors. From outside he shouted through the window:“It’s great to-day.”And there were patches of blue sky. Oh, it was going to clear up. Was there enough milk? Yes, just. Anyhow he wouldn’t get angry, not yet awhile, at any rate. Marry? Who was there to marry? No one as far as she could see. They were all too difficult or too easy. George was only something to do, if she hadn’t had someone to think of she would have gone mad. That new milk-lorry man was so nice-looking. But she ought to standby Father, it was easier that way. Why marry, anyway? It would turn out right in the end.Mrs. Donner said that the other night when the wind had risen so, a tree had blown down across the road and had prevented Mrs. Haye getting to Barwood without wetting her feet, and that was a good thing. What did she mean by writing to Father? She would like to marry John now, just to spite her. She poured milk out of the can into the teapot, and then began to wash up the plates from over-night. Father did not like eating off dirty plates, and it wasn’t really very nice either. She would have to change this water she washed everything in, it was so greasy that you couldn’t do anything with it, and it smelt rather. They might as well have some of that tinned herring. They had eaten it once too often, but still it was good.Father was better. He hadn’t been like this in the morning for many a time. So pleasant to talk to, and he hadn’t minded about breakfast. Yes, she would stay here and help him, he needed her, and look how much better he was already. And what would they do then? You didn’t know. It was not as if he could have a living again. But he would find some job, sure to. She laid out the clean plates and put out the butter. Had a mouse or something been at it? They were devils, those vermin, they got into everything and ate all that they set eyes on. There was nothing to be done, you couldn’t do away with them, there were too many. She putdown the tin of herrings with the opener and looked contentedly at the table. She called:“Father, breakfast is ready.”He came in slowly and sat down.“I’m so lazy.”“So’m I,” said she.*****Mrs. Haye was sitting in an armchair in her sitting-room reading a volume of reminiscences that some hunting man had left behind him. Over the fireplace Greylock looked down upon her, while on the writing-table stood Choirboy’s hoof, and there were sporting prints on the walls and an Alken in the corner. But all round were masses of flowers, the air was heavy with the scent of them, for her one extravagance was the hot-house, and Weston understood flowers. This book was interestin’, she had never known that the Bolton had distemper in ’08 and mange in ’09, a most awkward time for them, and the bitch pack had been practically annihilated. Again, it appeared that in ’13, Johnson, who used to hunt hounds so marvellously, had broken an arm, and on the very next day his first whip, the man that the Aston had now, had cracked his thigh. It was an unlucky pack. They had had foot-an’-mouth for two years now. Their own pack down here was gettin’ impossible. Even the Friday country was infested with wire, which of coursewas young Beamish’s fault; why they hadn’t given the job to someone more experienced no one could tell, but then there was some money that went with it. And she would have to get rid of this groom of hers, Harry; he drank, there was no doubt about it, you had only to smell him. What could one do?Mabel would be here soon, and then they could have a long talk about it all.How dark it was getting. Putting aside the book she rang the bell. Really it was becoming most tiresome, this affair between Herbert and Mrs. Lane. All day long they were at it, she had seen them again yesterday, spooning in the back yard. And the cooking suffered in consequence, that beef had been positively raw three days ago, and there seemed to be nothing but vegetables to eat now, John had been complainin’ about it. His appetite had returned, which was splendid. Where was William? She and Mabel could really have the business out, she knew she would approve. Ah, at last.“William, bring the lamps please.”The old thing had aged lately. They were all gettin’ older; and with Jennings dying like that, it was sad. Pinch retirin’ too, the garden didn’t look the same without him. But he was comfortable at home, and he had earned a rest.There was somethin’ the matter with Annie, perhaps she was getting really crazy, and they ought to send her to a home, but the other morning when she had said to her near the rubbish heap, with sucha gleam in her eye, “There will be new leaves soon,” it really was too extraordinary. And what did she mean, it wasn’t even March yet? Why were there always idiots in a village? And there was nothing one could do for them, that was the annoyin’ part about it.Here were the lamps. Appalling it was, the way some people were installing electricity, oil was much more satisfactory. They had always had oil and always would. Electricity was so hard and bright that it was bad for your eyes.“William, Mrs. Palmer will be in for tea to-day.”She was late, and that was wrong of Mabel, she knew how it irritated her to have to wait. She needn’t have hurried so down from the village. That roof in Mrs. Cross’s cottage would have to be seen to, it was in a terrible state, she ought to have been told before. Would the next people take any trouble? But then that wasn’t settled yet.She was restless to-day, she hadn’t been able to settle down to anything, this thing had been weighing on her mind so. And there were the household accounts to do, she was late with them, and they should be interesting this month. Mrs. Lane would have been going through an orgy of waste, the affair with Herbert would be sure to make her careless. They would have to take sixpence off the income tax this time, things couldn’t go on as they were, and the papers were full of it. Of course, giving this up would save money, but then there would beno flowers and no horses. So much of one would go with it. Mabel was late, late.A motor. Ah, the Cadillac. Really, it was too bad of her, and it was not as if she ever had anything to do. Well, anyway, they could get down to business now.The door opened.“Mrs. Palmer.”“My dear Emily, I’m so sorry I’m late. You see, my dear, the Cadillac broke down on the way, so tiresome of it. How are you?”“Very well, thank you, Mabel dear; and you?”They lightly kissed.“I caught a nasty chill at the Owens’ dance, and I’ve only just thrown it off. My dear, such a bore! There are nothing but draughts in that house, you know how it is. I think they might let one have one window shut, don’t you? Emily, it is nice to see you, I haven’t come across you for a week.”“To tell you the truth, Mabel, I haven’t been about much this week. With the village and one thing and another I haven’t had a moment. I wanted to have a talk . . .”The door opened. John came in.“Who is it?”“Mabel, John.”“How are you, John?”“Oh, is it you? I’m all right, thanks. How are things with you?”“Well, you know how it is dear boy, one irritatingthing after another. Only this afternoon on the way here the inside of the car went wrong, so tiresome. We waited for hours while Jenkins tried to find out what was the matter. And while we were there guess who should come by at the most appalling speed, my dear, so that it was not safe for anyone.” Pause. “The young Vincent boy on his motor bike.”“Was he going fast?”“My dear boy, he shot by. I have never in all my life seen anything like it, you know.”“John, dear, would you mind leavin’ Mabel and me for a short time We want to have a talk.”“Then I shall see you at tea, Mrs. Palmer.” The door shut.“What has happened, Emily, nothing serious, my dear?”“Mabel, I wanted to talk over a very important matter with you. You see, it’s about John.”“What? He is not ill again or something?”“Let us go straight to the point. Let me collect my thoughts. You see, Mabel, it’s like this. But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning. You see, even before he went blind, I knew that he was not made for the country, you know how one can tell about one’s boy. Well, anyway, from one thing or another I saw that he was not happy down here. You see, he has never liked huntin’ or shootin’ or any of those things, and now he can’t fish. I don’t know how it is, he is not in the least like Ralph or me. Where can he have got it from? And this writingthat he is so keen about, of course I encourage it, my dear, it is so good for the boy to have a hobby, but no one has ever written on either side of the family. Ralph even found letter-writing almost impossible. So that it is so difficult to understand him, dear.”“Yes, Emily, I have always felt that, you know.”“And then one has had girls to the house so that he might see some nice young things, but he has never taken to any of them, Mabel. There was Jane Blandair, a charming girl, but he has told me, in confidence of course, that he definitely dislikes her. My dear, I asked him why, and he said that it was everything about her. What can one do? Jane would have made such a splendid wife and mother. And of the other girls who have been, there was not one of them I would not have liked for a daughter-in-law. And he is quite a catch, isn’t he, clever and artistic, and he will have a little money. It was all very depressing, Mabel.”“Yes, dear, I felt for you so.”“Well, I was wretched about the whole business, and I slowly came to realise that he was not made for the country, like you or I. You see, he does not really care for the village, though he makes great efforts, poor boy. And then it is his future that matters. He gets terribly bored down here, he has no interests. He is always talking of the towns. He never actually says it, but I know he thinks we all get into grooves in the country, and so I supposewe do, I mean I personally am always fussin’ about the village, but of course he is too young to realise that one gets into a groove wherever one is. But there is his writing. That is his only interest. He has been so very brave all through this business, and he is now writing as hard as ever he did; naturally I encourage it, I think everyone should have a hobby, and I am sure you agree with me in this, Mabel. But he seems to think that one can’t write books in the country. Though all the books that you and I used to read, Mabel, like Jane Austen, were written about the country. Still, he thinks that he can’t, and I have always told him to try, but it must be so different when one is blind. So what he wants is to go away, Mabel, that is what it all comes to. He has never said it, of course, but that is what he wants to do.”“To go away, Emily? What for?”“Well, he is young . . .”“Yes, but we all know the wretched life they live in town, you know how it is, dancing all night and only getting up for lunch, you know how it is. I never could stand it when I was a girl. My dear, I don’t understand it.”“I think I do. I’m his mother, you see. He needs a change.”“Listen, Emily, why not take him to Eastbourne for a few weeks? Such air you get at Eastbourne.”“It is not that, besides there are other things. No, he—we must go to London.”“To London! For how long? But think of the noise. Do you mean for the winter and then come down here in the summer?”“We could not afford it, Mabel. You see, so much of the money went in those shares which are worthless now. No, it would have to be for good.”“My dear Emily, no, I cannot allow you to do this, you know. No. Think of the Town Council, and the Board of Guardians, what would they do without you? All it would mean is that the Walkers woman would take charge of the whole thing, Colonel Shoton is such a hopeless creature. And think of the village, Emily. Oh, you can’t go. It is probably only a passing whim of the boy’s you know. Take him to Eastbourne to get over it, my dear. Don’t do this thing recklessly. When you and I were young we had these moments ourselves when we wanted to get away. Why even now sometimes I say to myself that it is all too much and that I was happier at Allahabad, you know how it is, only a little restlessness, my dear.”“It’s more than that, Mabel. I’ve been so wretched about the whole thing.”“Yes, my dear, I am so sorry for you, but don’t let the fact of you being a little over-wrought influence you to . . . Why, think of the village. You know better than I do that Mrs. Crayshaw is so busy having babies that she has absolutely no time to attend to the affairs of the village. Why, it would all be indecent and disgraceful if you went so thatthere was no one left to look after it. You know how it is, illegitimate babies immediately, my dear. Oh no, Emily, you cannot go. Besides, what does the boy want to do in London?”“Yes, but you see he is artistic.”“But Emily, painters always go to the country for inspiration. I have never heard of a painting of a town that was any good. And there is nothing to write about in a town. Don’t let him ruin your life, Emily.”“My duty is by him.”“Yes, my dear, but does he know what he wants? He is only restless. And what would become of the committees and everything? And the Hospital Ball, Emily?”“Yes.”“And the Nursing Association, and the Women’s Institute, just when it is beginning to go so nicely, you know. Without you it would collapse. You are absolutely indispensable to its welfare!”“Am I?”“Now don’t be modest. Why, of course, you are. Think of Mrs. Walkers on the Board of Guardians. Emily, she isn’t honest.”“She is dangerous, that woman.”“My dear, do you know what I heard the other day? That as a very natural result of the way she goes on and what with all the money she burns and the way she keeps that house open always, trying to get people to come to it, you know how it is, and ofcourse no one will, she is in the hands of the moneylenders. Deeply involved.”“Well, I don’t know whether I should altogether believe that, but it is very interestin’.”“Isn’t it? All it means is that she will be misappropriating funds as soon as you are out of the way. And you know I’ve no head for figures.”“Yes; well, I don’t know.”There was a long pause while outside the night drew in softly, peering through the windows at the fire and the pools of light kept by the lamps. Mabel Palmer was lying back in her chair worn out by what she had had to say, and Mrs. Haye was looking vacantly at Greylock. Presently she roused herself.“Shall we have tea now, Mabel?” And she got up and rang the bell.*****“Is everything in?”“All that I’m going to take, yes.”“Well, I must go and see about the labels.” Mamma hurried out again.John stood in the middle of the room, smoking a cigarette. So they were going. Lunch had been a hurried affair, he had hardly eaten he was so excited. He had a wonderful stirring in his belly, for they were going. A light feeling, a warning of change. They had packed all that was being taken. When they got there Uncle Edward had lent themhis house till they should find one for themselves. Everything was packed and arranged. There was only the train now. It was nice of Uncle Edward. He sat down on his trunk.Was there anything more dreadful than waiting to be off? When there was nothing left to do, and you were forced to sit about and wait? He did not dare to walk for the positions of everything had changed, chairs were upside-down in the middle of what had once been a path, there was a large packing-case with protruding nails in what had been the passage between the sofa and the fireplace in the Hall, and he had tripped over a carpet which was rolled up suddenly for half its length. Desolation brooded over each room, and there were clouds of dust driving along here and there on draughts. The flowers had been removed so that the house was cold and hollow. It was changed.For of course they were moving. London was only six hours off now. Life would be quite different when they got there. Barwood would be wiped out, and he was going to begin again, on the right path this time. Think of all that one would write when one got to London, great things were going to happen there. He would hunt out B. G. and Seymour; they would introduce him to all the amusing people. How nice it was to be going.He had thought that yesterday was never going to end. Sitting here all the afternoon and all the evening, with William moving about painfully,stacking what he was to take away in one corner, and what was to be left and sold in another. Mamma had shot in and then shot out again continually, and her voice had been breathless at the number of things left to do, with a high note of anxiety whistling through her sentences. Ever since that day three months ago when she had sent him away that Mabel might deliberate alone with her, the high note had pierced through her conversation. Mabel had come many times since then, almost every day, and lately her voice had grown hard towards him, as if she thought that he was ruining Mamma’s life. But after all he had not made the suggestion first, it had been Mamma a month back who had said quite suddenly, “We are going to London,” and he “To London?” “Will you like that, dear?” Everything inside him had been beating, beating. It was good of her. He had a sinking feeling now, the whole thing was almost too good to be true.Spring was beginning here, and the hot rain that fell in short bursts made the room sticky. They said there was a haze of yellowy green over the black trees. He took off his tie and opened his collar.Nothing had happened in those last three months, nothing had ever happened down here, or rather, nothing always happened. He had thought a good deal and little had come of it, only he had seen God as a great sea into which all goodness drained, and those who were good pumped the goodness out againand watered the desert to make the flowers grow. Trees drew it up. A pretty notion. And all the time expectancy had quivered in the air, making life unbearable, there had been so much going on behind the scenes. Poor William, he had been sad packing yesterday. He was not coming to London, he was too old, and he was retiring on a pension, like old Pinch. That was another thing, all the old people were being left behind to die, and Nan was dead. There would be a new start in London. Poor Nanny, but she was happy, nursing children who had died young. Would she remember him? On her character in heaven “Great experience of blind babies.” Oh, he was so happy to-day.But Mamma would be happy in London, she would meet there all the people she had known in Scotland before she had married, and they both wanted to get away from Barwood. A town would be a great hive of houses where people were born and lived and died bitterly, there would be no dozing as in Norbury. They would be in the centre of things there, they would be on the spot, and the echoes of what was happening that one only heard faintly in these muffled fields would be clear up there, as a gong. Life was only nice in retrospect, and they could look back on the mists that coiled round Barwood and make them into an enchanting memory, with Joan rising through them, attracting a stray glance of the sun, and dispelling the mists a little.The coal fire burned steadily with a brittle tinkling sound, as though flakes of glass were falling tiny distances. Far beneath something groaned at being moved.The train, the first time since the affair. The same boy might sit and throw more stones, one of which might hit his window appropriately. Or there might be a collision, trains were unlucky for him. They would rush through the quiet fields while the telephone wires dipped beside them, over rivers where the fish lay under the bank, through villages where Barwood was repeated, through towns that were not big enough, till they crawled into the biggest town of all, dirtied by all the work that was going on there.Far away a steamer whistled on a river, it was the first warning of change. He was so excited. The room was sticky with damp. The soft harping rain fell rustling, rustling, while from the eaves drops pattered down on to the window-sill.Feet climbing stair carpet and Mamma came in.“We’re off in half an hour. Is everything ready?”“Yes, I think so.”She went down the stairs, more slowly this time. Half-way down she paused to look at her watch, then hurried on.“William, they ought to be off now, if they are going to catch that train. Are all the labels on?”“Yes, madam.”One, two—five—seven, eight. Eight trunks. Theywere all there, piled on to two cars. Cars were so expensive to hire nowadays. Thirty shillings. Ruinous.“Get in, Janet, get in. You have got the money I gave you? Don’t forget to label them to Paddington. The stationmaster is expectin’ you, and I will be there soon, so you’ll be all right. Yes, drive away.”Janet waved to William. He had aged, he looked so worn standin’ by the door there. It was a terrible business gettin’ people off.“There they go, madam.”“Yes.”What did he mean? Of course they were going. What?“They have not stopped, William?”“No, madam.”Janet was a capable young thing and she had travelled, so she would be able to manage. Besides, Smith had promised to look out for her.“Are the labels on all the suitcases?”“Yes, madam.”“Well, we start in half an hour.”Half an hour. Now what had she forgotten? Everything must be in. And anyway, Dewars would send her the inventory, so that she could send for anythin’ she did not want to sell. They would come by the furniture vans.“William, if there is anything I find missin’, you will send it up in the vans with the furniture.”“Yes, madam.”Well, that was that. She sank into a chair. A great sigh escaped from inside her. How terrible a house looked when you were gettin’ out of it. And all the doors were always left open. She got up and shut them, then she came back to her chair. This rain was horrible, and there was no fire. Had she said a word to everyone? Of course she was not going away for good, but they were not to live down here any more, so that a word or two was expected of you. It was so difficult, too, to find anythin’ to say. She had loved them all, and they loved her, but they did not understand her going away like this. They were always asking who was going to live here instead, and she did not know. It was a relief, though, now that they were really off, now that those endless discussions were over. Mabel was impossible sometimes, this business had estranged them almost. The clock had stopped. Really, William might have wound it up, even if they weren’t going to be here this evenin’. She looked at her watch. Twenty-nine minutes.It was nice of Edward to lend them his house with the caretaker and his wife. The two would quarrel, of course, that was the trouble about having married servants, but they would be comfortable there, and it would give one time to look round. 9 Hans Crescent. A German name, but, after all, the war had been over for some time. Nine. But . . . And she had only counted eight, and she had let them go off. What was this?“William, William!”“Yes, madam.”“Did you take Mr. John’s trunk?”“Mr. John? Mr. John’s box?”“Oh, oh. I was afraid that would happen. I should have reminded you. Oh, dear.”“Will you take it with you, madam?”“Yes, that would be best. Will you get it down now, and tell Mr. John that we start in twenty minutes?”How terrible all this was. There was William’s voice calling for Robert. He was useless, that boy, quite useless. Why was he never there when he was wanted? He was a good riddance, worthless creature. And William was beginning to forget everything. What could one do?They would have to take his box with them. And they would have to start earlier so as to have time to label it and everything. Really, John might have told them that he still had it in his room.Ah, this sort of thing exhausted one. She was quite worn out. What with going through the village on a last round of visits and talking to everyone for the last time in one’s official position, so to speak, one was worn out. Then she had given a farewell tea-party to the neighbours, a terrible affair. But they had said nice things on the Board of Guardians, and the Parish Council had presented her with an address, she would never forget that. Weston was going to Mrs. Parks, only three miles away, which was a good thing, for the soil heresuited him. Wait, there was Annie! She had not seen Annie. But what was the good, the poor thing was quite crazy? Crayshaw was going to take her on in his garden, so that she would be all right. It was good of him, he had the village at heart. She would send Annie ten shillings when she got to London. Mrs. Lane, too, was only moving two miles away, which was because she wanted to be near Herbert, of course, as he was staying on here to keep the garden tidy, till someone came to buy it. The house was sure to be sold, it was so beautiful, and the garden was the best in twenty miles. With Weston, Mrs. Parks would win all the prizes at the Norbury Flower Show. He was a good gardener, quite excellent with chrysanthemums.It was stupid to forget that trunk. Why, he had been sitting on it when she went up. She looked at her watch, ten minutes more, they ought to be off. But no, not quite yet, perhaps.It was nice of Edward, he must have understood how terrible leaving Barwood would be to her. Having a foothold up there made house-huntin’ so much more comfortable. Goin’ away was like leaving half one’s life behind one, but then the boy would be so much happier. She would be able to look up Mrs. Malinger, who used to live in Norbury years ago, she was such a nice woman.Had she put in the medicine chest? There, she had forgotten. But perhaps it was in. She leapt up and hurried upstairs to her bedroom. Out ofthe window there was the view over the lawn. And there was the cock pheasant being cautious at the bottom there. He and his wives could eat all the bulbs now. That lawn, how beautiful it was. And in the wild garden at the side the daffodils were beginning to come out, such a mass of yellow. Well, they were going. What had she come here for, she had been round the garden yesterday? Yes, the medicine chest. She looked, and it was there still. She had forgotten. It must come up by the van. How stupid of her, for towns were so unhealthy and the boy might need a tonic. Oh, dear, the garden. They ought to be off soon. She hurried downstairs again. There was William.“The car is round, madam.”“Very well.”Wait a minute, just to show him she did not have train fever. But that was childish.“John, dear, get your coat on and come, or we shall have a rush at the station.”His voice from above:“Coming.”“William, I entirely forgot about the medicine chest in my room. Will you send that on in the van?”“Yes, madam.”His voice, nearer:“Coming.”“Are the suitcases in?”“Yes, madam.”“Give me my coat, then.”“And, William, come and see us in London some time. Your brother is there, isn’t he?”“I will, madam, thank you.”Poor old thing, he was quite upset. It was rather terrible. Ah, here he was. How quickly he walked alone now.“Be careful, dear.”“I’m all right.”“Well, let’s get into the car. We have got plenty of time. Oh, William, the clock has stopped in the Hall there. I hope it isn’t broken. You had better get Brown’s man in to look at it.”They were off now. What did the clock matter as they weren’t coming back, but they sold better if they were going. John was waving. No, she couldn’t look back.“So we are going?”“Of course, dear.”He was so happy.They were in the car on the way to the station, how extraordinary after so many weeks’ work. Perhaps she had decided too quickly. Mabel, of course, had been right against it from the start. But the boy would only be happy in London, he wasn’t made for the country, especially after he had gone blind like that. Only the other day and here they were. Oh, there was the Vicarage. How fast they were going.“Hi! don’t go so fast.”“I love speed.”“But it’s so dangerous, dear.”“Where are we now?”“In the sunken bit. He has slowed down, that’s better. Dear boy, are you nearly enough wrapped up?”Farther away, farther away. Everything had been leading up to this. The road went by with a swish, the rain made the surface so wet.“Are you sure you haven’t forgotten anythin’? There may be still time to go back.”“I don’t think so.”There was the dove-cote. They were leaving so much behind. How fast the man drove. What was the good? But it was tiresome forgettin’ John’s box like that. It would put the excess luggage out, they would have to make a new bill, and that would take time. It would be a rush. There was Mrs. Trench. She hadn’t seen them, they were travellin’ so fast. She was about to have another baby. There must be something in the family, it was the only way to account for all the Trench babies dying as soon just as they were born. It brought the average of infant mortality in the village so high.“Where are we now?”“Why are you so jumpy, dear? We are just going under the leanin’ oak.”The leaning oak? There was a long way to go yet. The engine purred. London was the temple of machinery. It was hot in here.“Shall we have a window down?”“As you like. But it is rainin’.”The air came rushing in, sown with raindrops that spattered coolly against his face. He drank the wind in gulps, half-choking at the volume of it cramming down his throat. This was good. And the horn on this car had such an imperious note, but after all, great hopes were driving with it. They must go faster, faster, but then Mamma did not like it. The station was so far away, they might not catch their train. The horn again. He would like to take it away and have it in London as a souvenir to blow when things were not going well.“Oh, John, look. There are the village.”“Which side?”“There, to your left. Oh, you have missed them, they are behind now. How nice of them, how nice of them.”“Yes, that was nice of them.”“They were nearly all there. Oh dear.”“We shall come down and see them again soon.”“I saw Mrs. Withers, and Mrs. Hartley and old Mrs. Eddy had come from the almshouses. I waved. They were waving. It would have been nice to stop, but we haven’t the time.”“No, that would only have made a rush at the station.”Stopping like that would have been intolerable. Besides, it was better to break quickly with the old than to linger by it. The village would be allright. They must be on a hill now. How slow it was. They might miss that train. Then they could always take the next one. But it was this train that mattered, they must catch this train, he had thought so much of it, tearing across the country to the biggest town of all. Everything would give way to it, it was his train.“We are just passing the last of your estate, dear”; for it was still his.“Yes?”Thank God for that. They were almost out of the circle now.She did feel miserable, yes, it was being worse than she thought it would be. See how the corn was coming up, and the blossom just peeping through the trees. Two partridges, frightened by the car, shot away to curl over the hedge at the bottom of that field. Spring, and they were leaving. But then October was always the best month down here, they would come back for that, she had promised herself and Mabel. There was Norbury, quite close now, with some blue sky over it and a great rainbow—over the station no doubt.“Are you happy, John?”“Yes, very.”What a fool of a man that was who was driving the cart. Why couldn’t he get out of the way? That kind of labourer went to sleep, so the horses did too, of course. What was that? No. Yes, it was the Vincent boy on his motor bicycle. Mabel hadbeen right, it was mad the pace he drove. Look at him—no, he was gone.“Here we are in Norbury.”“Are we? Oh, well, it is not so very far now. Yes, I can smell it. Splendid. What’s the time?”“We have another ten minutes yet. Look, there’s the Tea Rooms, and Smith the boot shop, and Green the draper’s.”The driver had turned out of the High Street. Only another minute. He could hardly sit still. That must be a coal dump they were passing. A train whistled. Joy. The car pulled up, he jumped out and then stood lost.“Don’t move a step without me, dear.”“All right.”“You might fall on to the rails or something. Where’s Janet?”That would indeed be an anti-climax.“Here, John, come this way and sit on this seat.”How quiet it was here. A cursed sparrow was cheeping foolishly so near. The station seemed asleep. But he was going away. Behind in the waiting-room a voice droned on, while another laughed at intervals. There was Mamma’s voice coming. She had got hold of Smith, poor man. He was being allowed to speak, “No trouble at all, Mrs. Haye, at all. I will see to it immediately.” She stopped by him.“They are making out the excess luggage, my dear. I think it is all going to be all right.”“Good.”This seat was hideously hard. That sparrow. Why was no one moving? A burst of laughter from the waiting-room, there were quite a number of people in it. They would be travelling by the same train.“Janet.”“Yes, Mr. John.”“How much longer, Janet?”“Only five minutes now.”Why did she speak as if he was a child? Here were steps coming towards him, boots clanking on the flags. The man had a smell of grease and leather about him.“Porter?”“Yessir.”“Is it a through train to London?”“Change at Bridcote, Swindon and Oxford.”Why had Mamma not told him? So they were to travel provincially. Oh well. It was London, but it was not the express. They would crawl like a worm instead. Voices on all sides began to make themselves heard, growing louder and louder. Over them all was Mamma suddenly thanking Smith. Then she came and sat down by him.“I have done it all, I think.”“Good.”“It will be in soon now.”“So we change three times.”“Yes, dear, do you mind? Such a nuisance. Butit was the only train in the afternoon, and I thought we had better have lunch at home, it is so much more comfortable, don’t you think?”“Yes.”How funny that she had never consulted him. But she had always loved secrecy in her arrangements. A bell rang, steps began to make patterns of sound, and the voices rushed out of the waiting-room. They were off. A rumble which ran up to a roar and the train drew up. What a noise it was. But Mamma was dragging him along. A child’s voice, plaintive, “Mumma . . . blind, Mumma.” Yes, that was him.“Here you are dear, jump in. The corner seat. The carriage is reserved. I shall be back in a minute. Thank you, Smith. Now . . .”So they were off. Good-bye. He had had so many. Where was Mamma? Oh, why didn’t the train go?

“HOWminute we are.”

“Why?”

“Well, this does not seem to be a time of great feelings, perhaps we have had too many of them lately. And we are so small compared to the trees. Gods come and go, but trees remain. By ‘small’ I don’t mean ‘in height.’ They seem to me so lasting, so grave in their fat green cloaks, or in winter like naked lace.”

“There, an’ I’ve forgotten to feed the chickens.”

“We are so petty, while time in the towns rolls by on well-oiled wheels with horrible efficiency. The machinery there goes on and on, and there are bits of it that are not right. The most horrible injustices.”

“There’s no justice.”

“No, there is no justice.”

A long way beneath something in the town was dropped with a clang, while a tug coming up the river whistled to get through the lock, a long shriek which shivered through the trees. Birds circled in specks round the Abbey tower. There was nowind and on the hill smoke from a cottage fire drifted straight up towards the blue sky, for the sun was shining. Just in front, in the meadow by the edge of the wood, a rabbit was feeding quietly, trembling at being alive. And they sat together against a tree, he with his head on one side to catch what was going on, and she dozing, with the world drifting in and out of her mind.

“I hate this easy life with the millions toiling there.”

“I don’t find it easy.”

“No, I suppose not. But I will do something, even if I am blind.”

She pulled a wisp of hair away from her face and rearranged the ragged scarf about her neck.

“I expect you will, John.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

A confused shouting came from the lock, into which the barges were being packed. Several dogs were barking at each other while men ran about. The rabbit sat up and listened.

“John, there’s a darling rabbit out there,” and the rabbit fled.

“Oh?”

“He’s gone now.”

“Oh?”

And they were silent. From the other side of the wood a ploughman cried to his horses. Thenfrom in front came a rattling of machinery and the lock gates creaked, painfully slow.

“Why are you so silent to-day, John?”

“I must go, I must go away.”

“What do you mean, away from here?”

“No, to the towns.”

“Yes, I know. You do want to get off sometimes. So do I. Minnie is getting very tiresome, he’s been making messes all over the house, an’ father does hate messes. I really don’t know what to do.”

“What is Minnie?”

“Our cat.”

“Why do you give him a female name?”

“I don’t know. Father always calls him she. Father hates cats.”

She had told him this before.

“An’ Father’s so nervy nowadays, you don’t know what to do with him. It gets harder and harder to live there at all. Father spends so much money on—on small things we don’t need. There often isn’t enough to eat an’ . . .”

He heard a train snort in the distance like a dragon, and the wood round reared itself in tall crowding shapes and dark images. A voice droned complaint and he saw a little figure at the foot of an image throwing words at the things which hemmed her in.

“. . . but he doesn’t care, he never thinks of me, it’s me who has always to be thinking of him, howto keep him alive, how to keep the home round his head, how to manage so’s he won’t starve. Always thinking of him, I am, and he with never a thought to me.”

“Poor June.”

“Yes, it is poor June. You don’t know what it is with your easy life down there. There’s times when you don’t know if your own life’s safe when the fit is on him, he’s so dangerous.”

“June, he doesn’t attack you?”

“Attack me? If you could see my—the bruises on my arm, you simply wouldn’t believe. And he was brought to it.”

“I must go away.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“We ought all to go away for a time. The country is poisoning us, June. Under all the smiles that one hears and the soft kindness that one sees at first, there is so much cruelty. We will go.”

“They brought him to it.”

“It’s all so different in the towns, there is so much more going on.”

“But I don’t want any more to go on. I’ve got enough as it is.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, it’s all right. If it wasn’t for Father’s being as he is, it wouldn’t be bad. He’s worse than usual just now, and he won’t have you do anything for him.”

“We shall never do any good in the country.What is the use of staying down here? I ought to go away.”

“But how can we?”

We? How awkward!

“I shall never do any writing down here. It’s no good, one can’t.”

“No, I don’t suppose so.”

“Does nothing ever happen in the country?”

“Well, I don’t know that you have much to complain of, poor darling.”

“What, you mean going blind like that? Yes, I had forgotten. Except for that, then, nothing has happened. Sometimes I see a pool shut in by trees with their branches reflected in the stagnant water. Nothing ever moves, the pool just lies there, day and night, and the trees look in. At long intervals there is a ripple; the pool lets it die. And then the trees look in the same as before.”

“Funny John.”

“I may be, but that is the country.”

“D’you know how I live in that house where there’s everything to clean, and with not a soul to help me, mind you, with a man that throws anything away, anywhere, an’ the chickens to feed and the meals to cook?”

“There would be food to prepare and boards to scrub in towns.”

“Oh, I know there would, but we could have a gay time there, what with dancing an’ nice dresses an’ everything.”

“Oh yes, we could have a gay time there.”

How different this was to the first time he had sat at the top with her a fortnight ago. Only two weeks and so many things had happened.

“You will take me, won’t you, John darling?”

“Yes.”

Let in for it this time.

“But I can’t leave Father.”

“But I thought you said you wanted to go.”

“I wanted to make sure of you. Besides, why can’t I make believe?”

“Don’t you want to go with me, then?”

“Yes. But I can’t leave Father, he wouldn’t be able to do anything without me. Poor Father, he’s helpless, you know. He must have someone to look after him. And anyway you’ld have gone off.”

“June, why do you say that?”

“They always do. There was a story I read calledThe Love of White Hope.The young man in that left his girl whom he had promised to marry, and she committed suicide, which was stupid, and he was so sorry that he drank water for the rest of his life, or something, I forget, which was stupider still. Yes, that was it, he used to drink in his young days, and then after that he gave it up. He was lovely when he was young. You would never take me with you.”

“But I asked you to come.”

“Did you?”

“I said you could.”

“But you never meant me to.”

“Yes, I did.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Why don’t you come, anyway? It will not be for long, probably.”

“Shall I?”

A cow bugled dejectedly. He thought that the neck would be stretched out with the mouth half open as though it were going to vomit. Idiotic cows.

“No, I can’t leave Father.”

“Well, don’t say now that I didn’t ask you.”

“But you never meant me to go.”

Another cow answered from a long way off, and they exchanged dull grief across the hedges and the meadows. The hedges would be black at this time of the year, and the trees bare. The plough creaked leisurely, how slow everything was.

“I’m not blaming you. You’re not the sort that are meant to stay. Your sort can get rid of anything that displeases them, as Father says.”

“June, do come.”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see what you have to complain of from me.”

“Poor John.”

“It’s not as if you are going to have a baby or anything.”

“Don’t.”

“Well, is it?”

“You don’t understand.”

There was a long pause.

“Oh, to be in a town again, to hear a barrel-organ, for instance, across the street through gaps in the traffic! And all the rush there, and the thousands of people. I’d give anything to be there and just listen, so much would be going on, while here . . .”

“I couldn’t leave Father, could I, now?”

“No, perhaps not. But I think it is really fine of you to stay with him, I really do.”

“Fine? I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I mean, if he attacks you. And he has not done a great deal for you.”

“It isn’t his fault—besides, I won’t have you say things like that about him. Anyway I shouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for him.”

“I am sorry. I did not mean that. Certainly I have much to be grateful to him for.”

“Why, how do you mean?”

“For your being here.”

“Nice John.”

Why had he made a compliment like that? And why had she swallowed it?

“What will you do, June?”

“I don’t know.”

She never knew, perhaps that was the best. But he was beginning to.

“Well, remember, if ever you want to run away, come up to London and stay with us. We have not yet arranged to go to London; that is, I have noteven broached the subject with Mamma, but I must go, and in the end she and I will go. So just you come when you want.”

“I will. An’ may I bring Father too?”

“But—but yes, if you think he needs it.”

“I know you. An’ what’s wrong with Father? He’s nothing to be ashamed of. You think I don’t notice the way people pass us as if we weren’t there when they meet us on the road. It’s not his fault his being what he is. He was brought to it, and by your lot too.”

“June, what do you mean?”

“They were always criticising him—d’you suppose I don’t know how it was?—always carping away at him till his life wasn’t his own and as if it didn’t belong to him and no one else, and not to everyone as they thought, and finding fault with Mother for being in love with the postman, of course it was wrong, but why shouldn’t she, and them saying that he didn’t do his duty to his parish when he was worth the whole crew of them put together.”

“But June . . .”

“Oh, I’m not blaming you, don’t be frightened. But it was your lot that brought him to it, it . . .”

These scenes. And after all, flirting with the postman, it was unfortunate, and a squalid story. Now the man was so soaked in the whisky, or whatever it was he drank, that he was a topic of conversation. For that alone one ought to be gratefulto him. But Mamma was right for once, it was disgraceful. But it was sad too.

“. . . poor, poor Father.”

“Yes, June, I am so sorry.”

“You aren’t really.”

There was a pause, and then he said:

“I think perhaps suffering is rather fine, don’t you?”

Was it? He did not know. At any rate, it was a way out of blindness. She began again:

“But why wasn’t I allowed to wear nice dresses and stay in the Vicarage and go to dances an’ have some fun? Why have I got to scrub floors all day and cook meals and look after the house with never a word of thanks? It isn’t fair.”

“But you and I are really rather lucky . . .”

“Lucky! You . . .?”

His face, that awful face. He didn’t know what scars he had, poor boy. You couldn’t say anything to him, with his blindness an’ all.

“. . . but notlucky, John.”

“I can’t express myself. And I cannot understand how you endure your life if you don’t see the fineness in its being as it is.”

“Endure it? Why, it just goes on. Oh, John, you will take me with you, won’t you?”

“What is going to happen to Mr. Entwhistle, then?”

“I can’t leave Father.”

“Does he want to go to the towns?”

“No, he says that would be running away, I don’t know what from, though.”

“You couldn’t leave him, June.”

“No.”

“But you will one day.”

“How do you mean? When he dies? Oh no, he mustn’t die.”

“I wish you saw that about suffering.”

What could one say to her? If one was in her position and did not make it into something, it was not worth its own unpleasantness, that must be so. So that if she was too small to understand, she had much better go on the streets and have a good time on and off, if she could get it in no other way. She could not come to London with him, even if they went there, for she would only be unhappy. He could never introduce her to his friends, if he educated her she would only be genteel. Her value was her brutality, and she would lose that. Besides, there was the Shame, who was a fool from all accounts, almost an idiot. But you couldn’t let her go back to him in this frame of mind, it was waste. And what would she do when the old man died?—not that he was old, either, but quite young. Probably marry a commercial traveller. He would talk to Mamma. Oh, he was tired, tired.

There was a roar in the distance.

“June, what was that?”

“It’s a football match on the Town ground. Norbury are playing Daunton to-day, so Mrs. Donnertold me. She has a son that plays, wonderful they say he is.”

“That must have been a goal, then. Or a foul.”

“Oh, John, you mustn’t go.”

“Where?”

“Why, to London, of course. What shall I do?”

A huge voice came as a whisper from across the river. “’ere!” it said, frenziedly, “’ere!” And another roar overwhelmed it, then a shrill whistle, and silence.

“It is no good, June, I must go. And June must go too, if there is anything in a name. Think of your August, and of how exciting that will be. It will come right one day.”

“Will it?”

“You see, you cannot leave your Father; what would he come to? It is your duty to stand by him. It is good for one, too.”

How unpleasant it was giving this sort of good advice. She ought to stay down here, from every point of view it was best that she should. And when the man died he would see what could be done. Yes, he really would.

“We will write to each other, June, and everything will seem better to-morrow.”

“It won’t.”

“Yes, it will. Poor June. But think, we have had one good time anyway, you and I, haven’t we? There is one good thing behind us anyway, isn’t there?”

“Don’t go, don’t go-o.”

God, she was weeping. Well, that had finished it, he could not go. Poor June, and what a beast he was.

“All right, June, I won’t go. It’s all right, June, I’m not going. I’m not going, June, so it’s all right.”

“I’m so mis-erable.”

“But I am not going.”

“It’s” (sniff) “not that.”

“Aren’t you glad I am not going?”

“No. Yes.”

“Well, then?”

Why did one always talk baby-talk to someone who was crying?

“There, June, are you better now?”

“Yes.” Sniff. “The chickens’ll be starving.” Sniff. “I’d better go home.”

“Oh, you must not go home yet. June, I love you so.”

“Do you?” Sniff.

“Yes, I . . .”

“But, John, I think you’d better go to London, after all. It’ll be better for you there. I was only crying because of everything. I’m better now . . .”

What did she mean? What was in her mind? What was this, what was this?

“. . . fond of me, and I must help Father with his book, his wonderful book which will come out next year, we’re hoping. An’ you’ll go to Londonand do whatever you’re going to do there, I know you will. I expect you will be a great man one day. There’s the chickens. I’ve got to feed them an’ look for eggs, too, for supper. Shall I walk you back or can you get home alone now? For I’ve got to hurry.”

“No, I can get back alone all right by the roads. But, June, don’t go like this. What does it mean,—I mean how do you . . .?”

“Oh, you go to London. Father an’ I’ve got the book to write. He’ll show you all what a mistake you made. So long, John.”

“Good-bye, Joan.”

Another roar came from the football crowd, an angry sound. A dog had been barking monotonously for ever so long.

“But, June,” he shouted, to the wood, “June, what do you—June, I—June . . .”

But there was no answer, and he began feeling his way down the ride. How strange it all was, what could she mean? One’s head felt in an absolute turmoil, one didn’t know what to think.

He felt ill.

*****

Heavy clouds lay above the house, mass upon mass. From the garden rose a black tangle of branches with showers of wandering twigs. And on these would hang necklaces of water-drops caught from the rain, shining with a dull light.Over the river in the dark pile of wood there showed frightened depths of blue, untrusting patches of it, lying here and there. The grass on the lawn was sodden, beaten to a lake of pulp. But over everything was a freshness of morning and of rain that had gone by, and there was a feeling that the trees and the house and the sky were washed, and that this day was yet another page, that there were more to be, so quiet it was.

She came down the stairs, pausing at the hole on the ninth step, and entered the kitchen, a song on her lips. The room was filled with a wet, grey light that made it kind, and she was happy, so that she thought of sweeping the floor. Father had been much better lately, those pains of his had gone, and perhaps he had been drinking less. How would he be to-day? It was not good for him, all the gin he drank, but he could not help it. How nice it was this morning. She was sleepy, so sleepy. A wonderful dream last night, about a young man who had made love to her, with blue eyes. Poor John. But it was dusty in here. She went to the cupboard under the stairs and took out the broom.

The broom swept a wrinkle of dust across the floor, with matches and crumpled paper and dried mud thrusting along together in it. She hummed contentedly and thought about her poor John. Her poor John who had no eyes. Blindness would be a terrible thing to come upon you, and he was so brave about it, always talking as if it were nothing.You couldn’t help liking that in him. Oh, it was so wonderful this morning, and he was wonderful too. He was a gentleman, just as they themselves were for that matter, it was birth that counted, besides he hadn’t treated her as anything else but the same as himself. But there was no going on with him. It wasn’t as if times weren’t difficult enough just with her own set of troubles, his into the bargain were too much. Though if she had gone with him it would have been a score over Mrs. Donner. And what would have become of Father then? He had been so much better lately, quite different from what he had been before. Where was Minnie? And she hustled the dust through the door, driving it into the air in a fan-shaped cloud till it settled on the grass round the flakes of mud and the paper and matches which sat there taking a first look round.

Now there was no nonsense about George. How those cows did eat, all day long, and when they weren’t eating they were chewing over again. And George had been quite nice lately. He had even said something, rather surly and rude, and she had been rude back. At any rate it was a beginning. Funny George, he was so powerful, his hands looked as if they could hurt you so, not like John with that awful face always screwed up with his scars; you were frightened of him in a horrid way. John was clever right enough, but there wasn’t much to those clever ones. While George could do anything with those hands. The beech tree looked very bigthis morning, with the damp lying on his trunk in sticky patches. But the weather was clearing, and it felt so fresh this morning. There were the chickens to feed. Roses, roo-zez, all the way.

Getting some grain out of a cupboard in the kitchen, she went to the hut and let the chickens out. The cock was quiet and dignified this morning, rather sleepy. But as soon as he was in the yard he challenged the world and then scratched over a stone. The hens at once began to bustle about anxiously. When June scattered the grain they hurried to each fresh handful, while the cock asserted himself in the intervals of eating. She laughed at them as she always did, and cried “Chuck, chuck,” and they clucked back with choking voices.

She sauntered away and stood looking at the trees over the river. There had been a new man on the milk lorry yesterday, which was exciting. He had such a nice smile, and all for her as she leant over the gate. He would be going by again about half-past two, she would be there. Perhaps he had come for good, and had taken the place of the one with the wicked face. He had had two lives, that one. But the new man was a dream, with fair, fair hair and his blue eyes that danced. It was nice to have somebody new. There was a lot new to-day.

Funny how sometimes you suddenly saw everything different. The chickens looked just like old women going round to tea-parties, and the cocklike that old Colonel who used to call Father “Padre.” They were well out of that. That was John’s life, and—well, he was done with, anyway. Three weeks and not a word, but then that was like him. Probably there would be three letters one after the other in a week’s time, he was all moods. Nice the way the wind blew the sleep from off you.

Father’s voice from the window: “Is breakfast ready?”

“In a minute.”

“Oh, it’s all right. Don’t hurry.”

“I won’t.”

Oh, why was she so happy to-day? And he was too, you could tell by his voice, he never spoke like that unless things were going well. She hugged her arms. The way that hawk hovered. Where was Minnie?

She called: “Minnie, Minnie.”

He would turn up in a minute or two. He was always coming from nowhere, so to speak. You looked down and there he was, rubbing his back against your leg, quite uncanny it was.

She turned and went back into the house. There was Father coming downstairs.

“Breakfast isn’t ready yet. I’ve had no time.”

“That’s all right. Let’s go out.”

“It’s fine,” he said, “this morning, fine.”

They walked in silence along the path smothered in weeds. The dripping undergrowth was shining.A sparrow chirped. And there, suddenly, was Minnie.

“Oh, Minnie.”

“So she has come out too. I don’t hate her so much to-day. Puss, puss.”

Darling Minnie, so sleek, and looking rather frightened of Father, the cold eyes watched him so closely. Webs of moisture clung to Minnie’s coat, making such a brave show, pearls on black velvet.

“Minnie.”

And he lifted a paw.

“Never mind, leave her alone. We’ve interfered with her hunting. Anyway she’ll want to be killing. Come on.”

That was a good sign, Father not making a fuss when he saw him. His head was redder than usual, too.

“What about this Haye?”

“Oh, we parted.”

“Parted” had such a wonderful feel about it, and it had been so quiet. They had just said “good-bye.”

“Good thing too.”

“He was quite nice.”

“I don’t think much of that house.”

They walked on, round and round the old lawn. She had a fluttering inside.

“How did you know, Father?”

“Mrs. Haye wrote.”

“Wrote? What to say?”

“That you were going out with him. What business was it of hers, what you were about?”

“She wrote to you?”

“Damn them all. But you would have done well to have married him. It meant money.”

“But I couldn’t leave you.”

“Very good of you.”

She felt a kind of clearness, she saw her way. She was much, much happier than ever. She took his arm, but he seemed so uncomfortable that she let it go again.

“What’ll you do, d’you think?”

“Stay here.”

“But you can’t always do that, you know. You’d better go away.”

“Where to?”

“But you’ll marry some day.”

“No, I’ll stay with you.”

He pressed her arm. This time she did not try to press his, he was so shy.

“And there’s your book to write.”

“Yes, my book.”

There was a pause, and then he went on:

“I tell you what, I’ll fix up that hen-run to-day. But then there is no rabbit wire, and it is so expensive. Oh, well.”

“They’re just as well as they are. Look, Minnie has just pounced.”

“I must go and have a drop of something.”

“Why not give it up for a bit?”

“Oh no, can’t give it up, does one good, you know.”

“Then I’ll get breakfast ready.”

He went through the kitchen and into his room while she began leisurely putting out the breakfast things. A sheet of chill winter sunlight lay on the floor, and some of it was spilled over the window frame as well. She dabbled her feet in it and it came up to her knees. In her hand was the teapot, and, in the other, half a loaf of bread. There came the sound of a cork being drawn in the next room, which sent a shiver pleasurably down her spine. It got rather dull here when he knocked off the drink. But still, it was bad for him. Turning, she put the things down on the table and then went over to the cupboard.

A cough came from the next room. Then the door opened and he came through, a faint flush over his face, and went out of doors. From outside he shouted through the window:

“It’s great to-day.”

And there were patches of blue sky. Oh, it was going to clear up. Was there enough milk? Yes, just. Anyhow he wouldn’t get angry, not yet awhile, at any rate. Marry? Who was there to marry? No one as far as she could see. They were all too difficult or too easy. George was only something to do, if she hadn’t had someone to think of she would have gone mad. That new milk-lorry man was so nice-looking. But she ought to standby Father, it was easier that way. Why marry, anyway? It would turn out right in the end.

Mrs. Donner said that the other night when the wind had risen so, a tree had blown down across the road and had prevented Mrs. Haye getting to Barwood without wetting her feet, and that was a good thing. What did she mean by writing to Father? She would like to marry John now, just to spite her. She poured milk out of the can into the teapot, and then began to wash up the plates from over-night. Father did not like eating off dirty plates, and it wasn’t really very nice either. She would have to change this water she washed everything in, it was so greasy that you couldn’t do anything with it, and it smelt rather. They might as well have some of that tinned herring. They had eaten it once too often, but still it was good.

Father was better. He hadn’t been like this in the morning for many a time. So pleasant to talk to, and he hadn’t minded about breakfast. Yes, she would stay here and help him, he needed her, and look how much better he was already. And what would they do then? You didn’t know. It was not as if he could have a living again. But he would find some job, sure to. She laid out the clean plates and put out the butter. Had a mouse or something been at it? They were devils, those vermin, they got into everything and ate all that they set eyes on. There was nothing to be done, you couldn’t do away with them, there were too many. She putdown the tin of herrings with the opener and looked contentedly at the table. She called:

“Father, breakfast is ready.”

He came in slowly and sat down.

“I’m so lazy.”

“So’m I,” said she.

*****

Mrs. Haye was sitting in an armchair in her sitting-room reading a volume of reminiscences that some hunting man had left behind him. Over the fireplace Greylock looked down upon her, while on the writing-table stood Choirboy’s hoof, and there were sporting prints on the walls and an Alken in the corner. But all round were masses of flowers, the air was heavy with the scent of them, for her one extravagance was the hot-house, and Weston understood flowers. This book was interestin’, she had never known that the Bolton had distemper in ’08 and mange in ’09, a most awkward time for them, and the bitch pack had been practically annihilated. Again, it appeared that in ’13, Johnson, who used to hunt hounds so marvellously, had broken an arm, and on the very next day his first whip, the man that the Aston had now, had cracked his thigh. It was an unlucky pack. They had had foot-an’-mouth for two years now. Their own pack down here was gettin’ impossible. Even the Friday country was infested with wire, which of coursewas young Beamish’s fault; why they hadn’t given the job to someone more experienced no one could tell, but then there was some money that went with it. And she would have to get rid of this groom of hers, Harry; he drank, there was no doubt about it, you had only to smell him. What could one do?

Mabel would be here soon, and then they could have a long talk about it all.

How dark it was getting. Putting aside the book she rang the bell. Really it was becoming most tiresome, this affair between Herbert and Mrs. Lane. All day long they were at it, she had seen them again yesterday, spooning in the back yard. And the cooking suffered in consequence, that beef had been positively raw three days ago, and there seemed to be nothing but vegetables to eat now, John had been complainin’ about it. His appetite had returned, which was splendid. Where was William? She and Mabel could really have the business out, she knew she would approve. Ah, at last.

“William, bring the lamps please.”

The old thing had aged lately. They were all gettin’ older; and with Jennings dying like that, it was sad. Pinch retirin’ too, the garden didn’t look the same without him. But he was comfortable at home, and he had earned a rest.

There was somethin’ the matter with Annie, perhaps she was getting really crazy, and they ought to send her to a home, but the other morning when she had said to her near the rubbish heap, with sucha gleam in her eye, “There will be new leaves soon,” it really was too extraordinary. And what did she mean, it wasn’t even March yet? Why were there always idiots in a village? And there was nothing one could do for them, that was the annoyin’ part about it.

Here were the lamps. Appalling it was, the way some people were installing electricity, oil was much more satisfactory. They had always had oil and always would. Electricity was so hard and bright that it was bad for your eyes.

“William, Mrs. Palmer will be in for tea to-day.”

She was late, and that was wrong of Mabel, she knew how it irritated her to have to wait. She needn’t have hurried so down from the village. That roof in Mrs. Cross’s cottage would have to be seen to, it was in a terrible state, she ought to have been told before. Would the next people take any trouble? But then that wasn’t settled yet.

She was restless to-day, she hadn’t been able to settle down to anything, this thing had been weighing on her mind so. And there were the household accounts to do, she was late with them, and they should be interesting this month. Mrs. Lane would have been going through an orgy of waste, the affair with Herbert would be sure to make her careless. They would have to take sixpence off the income tax this time, things couldn’t go on as they were, and the papers were full of it. Of course, giving this up would save money, but then there would beno flowers and no horses. So much of one would go with it. Mabel was late, late.

A motor. Ah, the Cadillac. Really, it was too bad of her, and it was not as if she ever had anything to do. Well, anyway, they could get down to business now.

The door opened.

“Mrs. Palmer.”

“My dear Emily, I’m so sorry I’m late. You see, my dear, the Cadillac broke down on the way, so tiresome of it. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you, Mabel dear; and you?”

They lightly kissed.

“I caught a nasty chill at the Owens’ dance, and I’ve only just thrown it off. My dear, such a bore! There are nothing but draughts in that house, you know how it is. I think they might let one have one window shut, don’t you? Emily, it is nice to see you, I haven’t come across you for a week.”

“To tell you the truth, Mabel, I haven’t been about much this week. With the village and one thing and another I haven’t had a moment. I wanted to have a talk . . .”

The door opened. John came in.

“Who is it?”

“Mabel, John.”

“How are you, John?”

“Oh, is it you? I’m all right, thanks. How are things with you?”

“Well, you know how it is dear boy, one irritatingthing after another. Only this afternoon on the way here the inside of the car went wrong, so tiresome. We waited for hours while Jenkins tried to find out what was the matter. And while we were there guess who should come by at the most appalling speed, my dear, so that it was not safe for anyone.” Pause. “The young Vincent boy on his motor bike.”

“Was he going fast?”

“My dear boy, he shot by. I have never in all my life seen anything like it, you know.”

“John, dear, would you mind leavin’ Mabel and me for a short time We want to have a talk.”

“Then I shall see you at tea, Mrs. Palmer.” The door shut.

“What has happened, Emily, nothing serious, my dear?”

“Mabel, I wanted to talk over a very important matter with you. You see, it’s about John.”

“What? He is not ill again or something?”

“Let us go straight to the point. Let me collect my thoughts. You see, Mabel, it’s like this. But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning. You see, even before he went blind, I knew that he was not made for the country, you know how one can tell about one’s boy. Well, anyway, from one thing or another I saw that he was not happy down here. You see, he has never liked huntin’ or shootin’ or any of those things, and now he can’t fish. I don’t know how it is, he is not in the least like Ralph or me. Where can he have got it from? And this writingthat he is so keen about, of course I encourage it, my dear, it is so good for the boy to have a hobby, but no one has ever written on either side of the family. Ralph even found letter-writing almost impossible. So that it is so difficult to understand him, dear.”

“Yes, Emily, I have always felt that, you know.”

“And then one has had girls to the house so that he might see some nice young things, but he has never taken to any of them, Mabel. There was Jane Blandair, a charming girl, but he has told me, in confidence of course, that he definitely dislikes her. My dear, I asked him why, and he said that it was everything about her. What can one do? Jane would have made such a splendid wife and mother. And of the other girls who have been, there was not one of them I would not have liked for a daughter-in-law. And he is quite a catch, isn’t he, clever and artistic, and he will have a little money. It was all very depressing, Mabel.”

“Yes, dear, I felt for you so.”

“Well, I was wretched about the whole business, and I slowly came to realise that he was not made for the country, like you or I. You see, he does not really care for the village, though he makes great efforts, poor boy. And then it is his future that matters. He gets terribly bored down here, he has no interests. He is always talking of the towns. He never actually says it, but I know he thinks we all get into grooves in the country, and so I supposewe do, I mean I personally am always fussin’ about the village, but of course he is too young to realise that one gets into a groove wherever one is. But there is his writing. That is his only interest. He has been so very brave all through this business, and he is now writing as hard as ever he did; naturally I encourage it, I think everyone should have a hobby, and I am sure you agree with me in this, Mabel. But he seems to think that one can’t write books in the country. Though all the books that you and I used to read, Mabel, like Jane Austen, were written about the country. Still, he thinks that he can’t, and I have always told him to try, but it must be so different when one is blind. So what he wants is to go away, Mabel, that is what it all comes to. He has never said it, of course, but that is what he wants to do.”

“To go away, Emily? What for?”

“Well, he is young . . .”

“Yes, but we all know the wretched life they live in town, you know how it is, dancing all night and only getting up for lunch, you know how it is. I never could stand it when I was a girl. My dear, I don’t understand it.”

“I think I do. I’m his mother, you see. He needs a change.”

“Listen, Emily, why not take him to Eastbourne for a few weeks? Such air you get at Eastbourne.”

“It is not that, besides there are other things. No, he—we must go to London.”

“To London! For how long? But think of the noise. Do you mean for the winter and then come down here in the summer?”

“We could not afford it, Mabel. You see, so much of the money went in those shares which are worthless now. No, it would have to be for good.”

“My dear Emily, no, I cannot allow you to do this, you know. No. Think of the Town Council, and the Board of Guardians, what would they do without you? All it would mean is that the Walkers woman would take charge of the whole thing, Colonel Shoton is such a hopeless creature. And think of the village, Emily. Oh, you can’t go. It is probably only a passing whim of the boy’s you know. Take him to Eastbourne to get over it, my dear. Don’t do this thing recklessly. When you and I were young we had these moments ourselves when we wanted to get away. Why even now sometimes I say to myself that it is all too much and that I was happier at Allahabad, you know how it is, only a little restlessness, my dear.”

“It’s more than that, Mabel. I’ve been so wretched about the whole thing.”

“Yes, my dear, I am so sorry for you, but don’t let the fact of you being a little over-wrought influence you to . . . Why, think of the village. You know better than I do that Mrs. Crayshaw is so busy having babies that she has absolutely no time to attend to the affairs of the village. Why, it would all be indecent and disgraceful if you went so thatthere was no one left to look after it. You know how it is, illegitimate babies immediately, my dear. Oh no, Emily, you cannot go. Besides, what does the boy want to do in London?”

“Yes, but you see he is artistic.”

“But Emily, painters always go to the country for inspiration. I have never heard of a painting of a town that was any good. And there is nothing to write about in a town. Don’t let him ruin your life, Emily.”

“My duty is by him.”

“Yes, my dear, but does he know what he wants? He is only restless. And what would become of the committees and everything? And the Hospital Ball, Emily?”

“Yes.”

“And the Nursing Association, and the Women’s Institute, just when it is beginning to go so nicely, you know. Without you it would collapse. You are absolutely indispensable to its welfare!”

“Am I?”

“Now don’t be modest. Why, of course, you are. Think of Mrs. Walkers on the Board of Guardians. Emily, she isn’t honest.”

“She is dangerous, that woman.”

“My dear, do you know what I heard the other day? That as a very natural result of the way she goes on and what with all the money she burns and the way she keeps that house open always, trying to get people to come to it, you know how it is, and ofcourse no one will, she is in the hands of the moneylenders. Deeply involved.”

“Well, I don’t know whether I should altogether believe that, but it is very interestin’.”

“Isn’t it? All it means is that she will be misappropriating funds as soon as you are out of the way. And you know I’ve no head for figures.”

“Yes; well, I don’t know.”

There was a long pause while outside the night drew in softly, peering through the windows at the fire and the pools of light kept by the lamps. Mabel Palmer was lying back in her chair worn out by what she had had to say, and Mrs. Haye was looking vacantly at Greylock. Presently she roused herself.

“Shall we have tea now, Mabel?” And she got up and rang the bell.

*****

“Is everything in?”

“All that I’m going to take, yes.”

“Well, I must go and see about the labels.” Mamma hurried out again.

John stood in the middle of the room, smoking a cigarette. So they were going. Lunch had been a hurried affair, he had hardly eaten he was so excited. He had a wonderful stirring in his belly, for they were going. A light feeling, a warning of change. They had packed all that was being taken. When they got there Uncle Edward had lent themhis house till they should find one for themselves. Everything was packed and arranged. There was only the train now. It was nice of Uncle Edward. He sat down on his trunk.

Was there anything more dreadful than waiting to be off? When there was nothing left to do, and you were forced to sit about and wait? He did not dare to walk for the positions of everything had changed, chairs were upside-down in the middle of what had once been a path, there was a large packing-case with protruding nails in what had been the passage between the sofa and the fireplace in the Hall, and he had tripped over a carpet which was rolled up suddenly for half its length. Desolation brooded over each room, and there were clouds of dust driving along here and there on draughts. The flowers had been removed so that the house was cold and hollow. It was changed.

For of course they were moving. London was only six hours off now. Life would be quite different when they got there. Barwood would be wiped out, and he was going to begin again, on the right path this time. Think of all that one would write when one got to London, great things were going to happen there. He would hunt out B. G. and Seymour; they would introduce him to all the amusing people. How nice it was to be going.

He had thought that yesterday was never going to end. Sitting here all the afternoon and all the evening, with William moving about painfully,stacking what he was to take away in one corner, and what was to be left and sold in another. Mamma had shot in and then shot out again continually, and her voice had been breathless at the number of things left to do, with a high note of anxiety whistling through her sentences. Ever since that day three months ago when she had sent him away that Mabel might deliberate alone with her, the high note had pierced through her conversation. Mabel had come many times since then, almost every day, and lately her voice had grown hard towards him, as if she thought that he was ruining Mamma’s life. But after all he had not made the suggestion first, it had been Mamma a month back who had said quite suddenly, “We are going to London,” and he “To London?” “Will you like that, dear?” Everything inside him had been beating, beating. It was good of her. He had a sinking feeling now, the whole thing was almost too good to be true.

Spring was beginning here, and the hot rain that fell in short bursts made the room sticky. They said there was a haze of yellowy green over the black trees. He took off his tie and opened his collar.

Nothing had happened in those last three months, nothing had ever happened down here, or rather, nothing always happened. He had thought a good deal and little had come of it, only he had seen God as a great sea into which all goodness drained, and those who were good pumped the goodness out againand watered the desert to make the flowers grow. Trees drew it up. A pretty notion. And all the time expectancy had quivered in the air, making life unbearable, there had been so much going on behind the scenes. Poor William, he had been sad packing yesterday. He was not coming to London, he was too old, and he was retiring on a pension, like old Pinch. That was another thing, all the old people were being left behind to die, and Nan was dead. There would be a new start in London. Poor Nanny, but she was happy, nursing children who had died young. Would she remember him? On her character in heaven “Great experience of blind babies.” Oh, he was so happy to-day.

But Mamma would be happy in London, she would meet there all the people she had known in Scotland before she had married, and they both wanted to get away from Barwood. A town would be a great hive of houses where people were born and lived and died bitterly, there would be no dozing as in Norbury. They would be in the centre of things there, they would be on the spot, and the echoes of what was happening that one only heard faintly in these muffled fields would be clear up there, as a gong. Life was only nice in retrospect, and they could look back on the mists that coiled round Barwood and make them into an enchanting memory, with Joan rising through them, attracting a stray glance of the sun, and dispelling the mists a little.

The coal fire burned steadily with a brittle tinkling sound, as though flakes of glass were falling tiny distances. Far beneath something groaned at being moved.

The train, the first time since the affair. The same boy might sit and throw more stones, one of which might hit his window appropriately. Or there might be a collision, trains were unlucky for him. They would rush through the quiet fields while the telephone wires dipped beside them, over rivers where the fish lay under the bank, through villages where Barwood was repeated, through towns that were not big enough, till they crawled into the biggest town of all, dirtied by all the work that was going on there.

Far away a steamer whistled on a river, it was the first warning of change. He was so excited. The room was sticky with damp. The soft harping rain fell rustling, rustling, while from the eaves drops pattered down on to the window-sill.

Feet climbing stair carpet and Mamma came in.

“We’re off in half an hour. Is everything ready?”

“Yes, I think so.”

She went down the stairs, more slowly this time. Half-way down she paused to look at her watch, then hurried on.

“William, they ought to be off now, if they are going to catch that train. Are all the labels on?”

“Yes, madam.”

One, two—five—seven, eight. Eight trunks. Theywere all there, piled on to two cars. Cars were so expensive to hire nowadays. Thirty shillings. Ruinous.

“Get in, Janet, get in. You have got the money I gave you? Don’t forget to label them to Paddington. The stationmaster is expectin’ you, and I will be there soon, so you’ll be all right. Yes, drive away.”

Janet waved to William. He had aged, he looked so worn standin’ by the door there. It was a terrible business gettin’ people off.

“There they go, madam.”

“Yes.”

What did he mean? Of course they were going. What?

“They have not stopped, William?”

“No, madam.”

Janet was a capable young thing and she had travelled, so she would be able to manage. Besides, Smith had promised to look out for her.

“Are the labels on all the suitcases?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Well, we start in half an hour.”

Half an hour. Now what had she forgotten? Everything must be in. And anyway, Dewars would send her the inventory, so that she could send for anythin’ she did not want to sell. They would come by the furniture vans.

“William, if there is anything I find missin’, you will send it up in the vans with the furniture.”

“Yes, madam.”

Well, that was that. She sank into a chair. A great sigh escaped from inside her. How terrible a house looked when you were gettin’ out of it. And all the doors were always left open. She got up and shut them, then she came back to her chair. This rain was horrible, and there was no fire. Had she said a word to everyone? Of course she was not going away for good, but they were not to live down here any more, so that a word or two was expected of you. It was so difficult, too, to find anythin’ to say. She had loved them all, and they loved her, but they did not understand her going away like this. They were always asking who was going to live here instead, and she did not know. It was a relief, though, now that they were really off, now that those endless discussions were over. Mabel was impossible sometimes, this business had estranged them almost. The clock had stopped. Really, William might have wound it up, even if they weren’t going to be here this evenin’. She looked at her watch. Twenty-nine minutes.

It was nice of Edward to lend them his house with the caretaker and his wife. The two would quarrel, of course, that was the trouble about having married servants, but they would be comfortable there, and it would give one time to look round. 9 Hans Crescent. A German name, but, after all, the war had been over for some time. Nine. But . . . And she had only counted eight, and she had let them go off. What was this?

“William, William!”

“Yes, madam.”

“Did you take Mr. John’s trunk?”

“Mr. John? Mr. John’s box?”

“Oh, oh. I was afraid that would happen. I should have reminded you. Oh, dear.”

“Will you take it with you, madam?”

“Yes, that would be best. Will you get it down now, and tell Mr. John that we start in twenty minutes?”

How terrible all this was. There was William’s voice calling for Robert. He was useless, that boy, quite useless. Why was he never there when he was wanted? He was a good riddance, worthless creature. And William was beginning to forget everything. What could one do?

They would have to take his box with them. And they would have to start earlier so as to have time to label it and everything. Really, John might have told them that he still had it in his room.

Ah, this sort of thing exhausted one. She was quite worn out. What with going through the village on a last round of visits and talking to everyone for the last time in one’s official position, so to speak, one was worn out. Then she had given a farewell tea-party to the neighbours, a terrible affair. But they had said nice things on the Board of Guardians, and the Parish Council had presented her with an address, she would never forget that. Weston was going to Mrs. Parks, only three miles away, which was a good thing, for the soil heresuited him. Wait, there was Annie! She had not seen Annie. But what was the good, the poor thing was quite crazy? Crayshaw was going to take her on in his garden, so that she would be all right. It was good of him, he had the village at heart. She would send Annie ten shillings when she got to London. Mrs. Lane, too, was only moving two miles away, which was because she wanted to be near Herbert, of course, as he was staying on here to keep the garden tidy, till someone came to buy it. The house was sure to be sold, it was so beautiful, and the garden was the best in twenty miles. With Weston, Mrs. Parks would win all the prizes at the Norbury Flower Show. He was a good gardener, quite excellent with chrysanthemums.

It was stupid to forget that trunk. Why, he had been sitting on it when she went up. She looked at her watch, ten minutes more, they ought to be off. But no, not quite yet, perhaps.

It was nice of Edward, he must have understood how terrible leaving Barwood would be to her. Having a foothold up there made house-huntin’ so much more comfortable. Goin’ away was like leaving half one’s life behind one, but then the boy would be so much happier. She would be able to look up Mrs. Malinger, who used to live in Norbury years ago, she was such a nice woman.

Had she put in the medicine chest? There, she had forgotten. But perhaps it was in. She leapt up and hurried upstairs to her bedroom. Out ofthe window there was the view over the lawn. And there was the cock pheasant being cautious at the bottom there. He and his wives could eat all the bulbs now. That lawn, how beautiful it was. And in the wild garden at the side the daffodils were beginning to come out, such a mass of yellow. Well, they were going. What had she come here for, she had been round the garden yesterday? Yes, the medicine chest. She looked, and it was there still. She had forgotten. It must come up by the van. How stupid of her, for towns were so unhealthy and the boy might need a tonic. Oh, dear, the garden. They ought to be off soon. She hurried downstairs again. There was William.

“The car is round, madam.”

“Very well.”

Wait a minute, just to show him she did not have train fever. But that was childish.

“John, dear, get your coat on and come, or we shall have a rush at the station.”

His voice from above:

“Coming.”

“William, I entirely forgot about the medicine chest in my room. Will you send that on in the van?”

“Yes, madam.”

His voice, nearer:

“Coming.”

“Are the suitcases in?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Give me my coat, then.”

“And, William, come and see us in London some time. Your brother is there, isn’t he?”

“I will, madam, thank you.”

Poor old thing, he was quite upset. It was rather terrible. Ah, here he was. How quickly he walked alone now.

“Be careful, dear.”

“I’m all right.”

“Well, let’s get into the car. We have got plenty of time. Oh, William, the clock has stopped in the Hall there. I hope it isn’t broken. You had better get Brown’s man in to look at it.”

They were off now. What did the clock matter as they weren’t coming back, but they sold better if they were going. John was waving. No, she couldn’t look back.

“So we are going?”

“Of course, dear.”

He was so happy.

They were in the car on the way to the station, how extraordinary after so many weeks’ work. Perhaps she had decided too quickly. Mabel, of course, had been right against it from the start. But the boy would only be happy in London, he wasn’t made for the country, especially after he had gone blind like that. Only the other day and here they were. Oh, there was the Vicarage. How fast they were going.

“Hi! don’t go so fast.”

“I love speed.”

“But it’s so dangerous, dear.”

“Where are we now?”

“In the sunken bit. He has slowed down, that’s better. Dear boy, are you nearly enough wrapped up?”

Farther away, farther away. Everything had been leading up to this. The road went by with a swish, the rain made the surface so wet.

“Are you sure you haven’t forgotten anythin’? There may be still time to go back.”

“I don’t think so.”

There was the dove-cote. They were leaving so much behind. How fast the man drove. What was the good? But it was tiresome forgettin’ John’s box like that. It would put the excess luggage out, they would have to make a new bill, and that would take time. It would be a rush. There was Mrs. Trench. She hadn’t seen them, they were travellin’ so fast. She was about to have another baby. There must be something in the family, it was the only way to account for all the Trench babies dying as soon just as they were born. It brought the average of infant mortality in the village so high.

“Where are we now?”

“Why are you so jumpy, dear? We are just going under the leanin’ oak.”

The leaning oak? There was a long way to go yet. The engine purred. London was the temple of machinery. It was hot in here.

“Shall we have a window down?”

“As you like. But it is rainin’.”

The air came rushing in, sown with raindrops that spattered coolly against his face. He drank the wind in gulps, half-choking at the volume of it cramming down his throat. This was good. And the horn on this car had such an imperious note, but after all, great hopes were driving with it. They must go faster, faster, but then Mamma did not like it. The station was so far away, they might not catch their train. The horn again. He would like to take it away and have it in London as a souvenir to blow when things were not going well.

“Oh, John, look. There are the village.”

“Which side?”

“There, to your left. Oh, you have missed them, they are behind now. How nice of them, how nice of them.”

“Yes, that was nice of them.”

“They were nearly all there. Oh dear.”

“We shall come down and see them again soon.”

“I saw Mrs. Withers, and Mrs. Hartley and old Mrs. Eddy had come from the almshouses. I waved. They were waving. It would have been nice to stop, but we haven’t the time.”

“No, that would only have made a rush at the station.”

Stopping like that would have been intolerable. Besides, it was better to break quickly with the old than to linger by it. The village would be allright. They must be on a hill now. How slow it was. They might miss that train. Then they could always take the next one. But it was this train that mattered, they must catch this train, he had thought so much of it, tearing across the country to the biggest town of all. Everything would give way to it, it was his train.

“We are just passing the last of your estate, dear”; for it was still his.

“Yes?”

Thank God for that. They were almost out of the circle now.

She did feel miserable, yes, it was being worse than she thought it would be. See how the corn was coming up, and the blossom just peeping through the trees. Two partridges, frightened by the car, shot away to curl over the hedge at the bottom of that field. Spring, and they were leaving. But then October was always the best month down here, they would come back for that, she had promised herself and Mabel. There was Norbury, quite close now, with some blue sky over it and a great rainbow—over the station no doubt.

“Are you happy, John?”

“Yes, very.”

What a fool of a man that was who was driving the cart. Why couldn’t he get out of the way? That kind of labourer went to sleep, so the horses did too, of course. What was that? No. Yes, it was the Vincent boy on his motor bicycle. Mabel hadbeen right, it was mad the pace he drove. Look at him—no, he was gone.

“Here we are in Norbury.”

“Are we? Oh, well, it is not so very far now. Yes, I can smell it. Splendid. What’s the time?”

“We have another ten minutes yet. Look, there’s the Tea Rooms, and Smith the boot shop, and Green the draper’s.”

The driver had turned out of the High Street. Only another minute. He could hardly sit still. That must be a coal dump they were passing. A train whistled. Joy. The car pulled up, he jumped out and then stood lost.

“Don’t move a step without me, dear.”

“All right.”

“You might fall on to the rails or something. Where’s Janet?”

That would indeed be an anti-climax.

“Here, John, come this way and sit on this seat.”

How quiet it was here. A cursed sparrow was cheeping foolishly so near. The station seemed asleep. But he was going away. Behind in the waiting-room a voice droned on, while another laughed at intervals. There was Mamma’s voice coming. She had got hold of Smith, poor man. He was being allowed to speak, “No trouble at all, Mrs. Haye, at all. I will see to it immediately.” She stopped by him.

“They are making out the excess luggage, my dear. I think it is all going to be all right.”

“Good.”

This seat was hideously hard. That sparrow. Why was no one moving? A burst of laughter from the waiting-room, there were quite a number of people in it. They would be travelling by the same train.

“Janet.”

“Yes, Mr. John.”

“How much longer, Janet?”

“Only five minutes now.”

Why did she speak as if he was a child? Here were steps coming towards him, boots clanking on the flags. The man had a smell of grease and leather about him.

“Porter?”

“Yessir.”

“Is it a through train to London?”

“Change at Bridcote, Swindon and Oxford.”

Why had Mamma not told him? So they were to travel provincially. Oh well. It was London, but it was not the express. They would crawl like a worm instead. Voices on all sides began to make themselves heard, growing louder and louder. Over them all was Mamma suddenly thanking Smith. Then she came and sat down by him.

“I have done it all, I think.”

“Good.”

“It will be in soon now.”

“So we change three times.”

“Yes, dear, do you mind? Such a nuisance. Butit was the only train in the afternoon, and I thought we had better have lunch at home, it is so much more comfortable, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

How funny that she had never consulted him. But she had always loved secrecy in her arrangements. A bell rang, steps began to make patterns of sound, and the voices rushed out of the waiting-room. They were off. A rumble which ran up to a roar and the train drew up. What a noise it was. But Mamma was dragging him along. A child’s voice, plaintive, “Mumma . . . blind, Mumma.” Yes, that was him.

“Here you are dear, jump in. The corner seat. The carriage is reserved. I shall be back in a minute. Thank you, Smith. Now . . .”

So they were off. Good-bye. He had had so many. Where was Mamma? Oh, why didn’t the train go?

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