ELEVEN: BEFORE THE SWALLOW DARES
Easterwas over, but the church at Dry Coulter was still full of the scent of flowers mingled with the odour of their corruption. A necklace of decayed marsh-mallows hung forlornly round the neck of the eagle; its brazen beak held a bunch of wilted cowslips, but the daffodils and narcissus on the altar still breathed out their perfume. Easter was over, and Mr. Dunnock heaved a sigh of relief for he had come to feel the church festivals a great strain upon him.
Easter was over; Mrs. Pattle marched up the aisle on her flat feet and began tearing down the flowers which her children had gathered three days before.
Mr. Dunnock walked by the little pathway from the vestry to his wife’s grave, and stood there looking at the headstone. He stayed there so long and stood so still that a robin, recognizing a friend in him, came to perch on his shoulder.
“The resurrection of the flesh has come to pass,” Mr. Dunnock said aloud. “These onescome to me and they commune with me; why does she alone delay?”
At last a cow lowing on the other side of the hedge, interrupted the clergyman’s reverie; he started slightly and coming to himself began to pull his beard with a gesture of despair, and the robin, who had been wondering if he could induce his wife to nest in it, flew off to a tombstone, disappointed.
“I live in two worlds,” Mr. Dunnock reflected. “Only the saints know how terrible the strain of such an experience can be. I cannot bear it much longer; something will break in me. My head aches when I am recalled from the contemplation of so much glory to the pettiness in which men live, their eyes on the ground and their ears stopped to the voices of the angels. I cannot endure it any longer; it would be better, I think, if I were to live alone.” He clutched at his head suddenly, and then walked rapidly from the churchyard towards the vicarage. But the song of a willow wren caught his ear as he passed under the elms, and he paused to listen. The clear top note was followed by a stream of softer sounds and ended with a cadence of lower notes, a touch of melancholy in which the vicar felt his own heart expressed. The bird sang, and sang again, and Mr. Dunnock, resting his shoulderagainst the rough bark of an elm, listened without seeing the approach of two village women, or noticing their inquisitive glances as they passed near him, or hearing their words, for, in answer to a nudge, one of them had protested to her companion: “Oh, dear me, Fanny. Don’t.”
They were silent for fear of laughing, but when they had passed the vicar, one of them said: “Maggie told me she couldn’t make anything of his sermon on Easter Sunday. It was all about Easter Eggs being the promise of glory. She didn’t know what he meant by it.”
But the women did not laugh, and soon turned to safer and more interesting topics of conversation.
The willow wren had been silent a long while, and was looking for worms, when at last for Mr. Dunnock also the mood of ecstasy passed; he looked about him startled and bewildered, and then, reassured by finding he was alone, he shook his head sadly, and the first glance of fear was replaced by a bitter smile as he hurried back to the vicarage at top speed.
“Lay my meals on a tray in future,” he said to Maggie a few minutes later. “And put the tray on the table in the passage outside my study. I shall hear if you tap on the door.” Words which were repeated to Anne when shecame down to lunch. She was content to be alone, but at dinner she was disturbed at this alteration in her father’s habits, wondering whether he were unwell, or whether by any chance Maggie were right in believing that he wished the change to be permanent. But this seemed to her so unlikely a possibility that she did not dwell on it, and, when the meal was over, she lit the lamp and settled down with her drawing-board in front of her; she had at last begun the fashion plates which she had been projecting all the winter. The fine weather had returned after Richard Sotheby’s departure, and for the first day of warm sunshine Anne had found happiness enough in being out of doors, a happiness shot through with irritation against herself.
“I am wasting my life looking at this pear blossom. What does it matter to me whether the fruit set or not? I shall be gone before the gathering.” But her habitual interest had been too strong for her, and she had watched the bees flying in and out among the masses of curdy petals with delight.
“I am lingering on. I shall linger all my life. I must go now; I must leave home to-day.”
But it was impossible to leave on the day before Easter, and instead of packing her box, shehad gone to the church to pin up the notice saying: “There will be no service on Saturday, when the church will be open for decoration.”
When Saturday had come she had gone herself to help the little girls, and it was not until after Easter was over that the fashion plates had been begun. The results of her labours surpassed Anne’s expectations; such fashion plates as hers she felt sure would excite the Parisian dressmakers.
“I must send them to Richard at once,” she said as she took out the drawing-pins. But the thought of waiting for a letter, and the agony of uncertainty in which she saw herself, dismayed her. In her mood of exultation delay of any kind seemed impossible.
“But I will wait all the same,” she said, “until I have finished a dozen, and then I shall go to Paris myself to seek my fortune. I will write and tell Richard that I am coming.”
The letter was put off; she would not write until she knew the day and the hour of her arrival, and for several days she worked hard, shutting herself up in her room every morning when the bed had been made. When she laid down her brush it was to plan how she would have her hair cut off in London, and how she would buy herself a smart dress for the journey, for she believedthat she would never impress a dressmaker in such rags as she possessed. With her mind full of such matters, Anne rose and looked out of her window; the first blush of pink petals was showing through the early green of the apple trees; in another week they would be in full blossom. Under the trees Mr. Dunnock was standing with his arms raised above his head, gazing up at the sky, a pose which Anne found sufficiently startling to make her look again, carefully screening her eyes from the sunlight. Her father stood motionless; every little while she could see a small bird fly up and settle on his shoulder.
“I have scarcely spoken to father for three days; I must speak to him now and tell him of my plans,” and as she made this resolution, she saw him moving slowly across the lawn. As he came nearer she saw that a crowd of little birds was following him, a wild twittering came from them, they were mobbing him as though he were a cat or an owl; at every moment birds would settle on his head or shoulders, or on his up-raised hands, and then would fly off again.
A beautiful spectacle it seemed to Anne, and she felt a new tenderness for her father as she watched. The thin black figure with the head thrown back, the eyes turned up, and the beard jutting out, no longer seemed queer as it had amoment before, when she had first caught sight of it standing under the apple trees.
“He will feel my desertion,” she murmured, a sudden sympathy with her father coming to her, and she felt a love which had been forgotten for many months.
“First mother, and then me,” she said. But her love did not weaken her determination to speak to him of her departure, but strengthened it.
When Mr. Dunnock reached the house, he shook his head, first gently, but then, as a blue-tit still remained perched there, more violently, and then turning round waved his hands towards the birds which had settled in the rose bushes about the door. Anne saw that he was bestowing a benediction. She did not wait longer, but hurrying downstairs, followed her father into his study.
“We see very little of each other now, father,” she said.
Mr. Dunnock started at her words and looked round at her with guilty eyes.
“Yes, Anne, yes,” he murmured. “Do you wish to speak to me? Something perhaps about the housekeeping?” and he began to fidget with his fingers, wishing that she would go away.
“I have wanted to speak to you for sometime,” said Anne. “I have been thinking a great deal about my own life. It will seem very selfish to you, and very heartless. It is very selfish....”
“We are all of us selfish,” said Mr. Dunnock. “What is it that you want?”
“I want to go away, at least for a time,” said Anne. “I do not want to settle down for the rest of my life without seeing something of the world. I have never been to London.”
There was a silence, and after a little she went on: “I shall have to earn my own living, of course, but that should not be impossible. An experiment ... an experience ... the experience would be good for me. I have never been to London. There are so many things.”
“That seems a very sensible plan, if it can be managed,” said Mr. Dunnock, cutting her short. “But then you have plenty of good sense, Anne, more than I have in some ways.”
He sat down suddenly at his writing table, dropping his head between his hands, and there he remained, silent for so long that Anne began to wonder if he had forgotten her, but she said nothing, only repeating under her breath: “It is settled: I am leaving home.”
But at last Mr. Dunnock looked up, saying: “Let me see.... What was I going to say? You will require some money, Anne, if you are goingaway. I can give you twenty pounds, enough to enable you to look about you. Do as you think best, dear child, in every way.” His head began to nod again, and then, as if suddenly waking up, he said:
“I am glad you are going, Anne. I am glad the suggestion came from you: that it should be your own wish. I am rather bad company, I know, but there is a reason for that. You think my life here is narrow perhaps, but you see only one side. I can assure you that you are mistaken; my life is incredibly rich and overflowing with happiness. But that has to be hidden; there is a reason for that. I need loneliness; you perhaps need to see the world at present, but we shall meet again, and I have no fear that ultimately ... you will understand what is hidden....” He broke off disconnectedly, and suddenly Anne felt her happiness shot through by a feeling of dismay, in which she wondered if she could leave her father to fend for himself. Such phrases were familiar to her from his lips, but they seemed strange coming at such a moment and when she went from the room it was with a conviction that she would be doing wrong to go away.
Her scruples were soon forgotten in the excitement of making plans, and the rest of the day was spent in packing and unpacking awooden box with her possessions. Two days later all was ready, and the hour of her departure had been fixed for the morrow. In the morning she went to say good-bye to Mrs. Sotheby, and to ask if Rachel would come to have tea with her.
“We shall miss you very much,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “But I shall try to think that you are enjoying yourself seeing more of the world than you would here. I hardly know what to say about Rachel. You know how fond she is of you. She will want to come to say good-bye; it is a great pity that Mr. Sotheby has arranged to take us to see the cottages at Linton. You would not care to come with us, I suppose? Then everyone would be happy.”
“I should like to come very much,” said Anne, “if I shall not be in the way.”
“I’ll just ask Mr. Sotheby if there will be room in the dog-cart for us all,” said the old woman and, through the opened door into the parlour, Anne could see the grocer sitting at the table, looking up from a sheet of blue paper with a T-square in his hands.
They set off soon after lunch, Anne sitting on the back seat of the dog-cart with Rachel, but the pony did not seem to feel the extra weight. Anne soon set Rachel talking, and the little girl kept her amused with stories of her school, andhow she had been teased about her brother, and it was some time before she broke the news of her own departure. Rachel stared down at the road, a yellow river flowing so swiftly from below the dog-cart that she could not distinguish the stones in it. “You won’t ever think of me; you won’t write to me; you won’t ever come back,” were her thoughts, but she knew that she must hide her unhappiness, and when she spoke, as the trap drew up smartly, it was to ask: “Will you be going to Paris?” a question which Anne found so disturbing that she saw little of the first cottage into which she was led. The smell of fresh paint, mingled with the fragrance of aromatic pine shavings on the plank floors, recalled her to her surroundings, and she listened for a moment to Mr. Sotheby, who was speaking to her.
“These cottages are only a stepping-stone to greater things, Miss Dunnock. I have mortgaged them already. What Linton lacks is a high-class Temperance Hotel, overlooking the river. Such a hotel would attract visitors for the fishing and boating, and would cater also for the more respectable commercial men. A Temperance Hotel would wake up trade in the town, and would provide a delightful centre for holiday-makers and abstainers, and men from the university.”
“What shall I say to Rachel?” Anne asked herself as she followed the grocer up the little staircase into the poky bedrooms, which smelt of varnish.
“A little shop like ours is a great snare for a man with ambition. I have wasted the best years of my life in it, years during which I might have built up a great merchandising house. But this hotel, and others like it, will soon make my son a rich man, and provide for Rachel. A Temperance Hotel with a grand loggia looking over the river, pillars with climbing roses, a small winter garden with azaleas.... We must move with the times, you know, Miss Dunnock.”
Anne descended the narrow stairs and followed Mrs. Sotheby across a patch of sticky clay to the dog-cart.
“Yes, I am going to Paris. Don’t tell anyone; it is a secret,” she said to the little girl as they drove off. It was only after saying this that Anne looked up at the cottages, seeing them for the first time. Their extreme ugliness and the evident signs of jerry-building dismayed her.
“What will the next thing be like?” she asked herself, remembering the grocer had spoken of an hotel, and expecting to see it round the corner. In a moment or two Mr. Sotheby drew rein by the side of the quiet stream of the Ouse, butthere was no building visible, only an empty field, the site for the new hotel.
“A lounge hall lit entirely by windows of yellow stained glass is my idea,” said Mr. Sotheby. “It will give the effect of sunshine all the year round. The landing-stage is to run the entire length of the building. It will be covered by a glass roof. There is to be a garage on the right and a boathouse on the left, each under its own dome of glass, thus giving symmetry to the whole. There will be central heating, a lift, electric light, a banqueting hall....”
Anne gazed at the water-logged field, at the slow stream with the bunches of reeds and the gasworks on the opposite bank, and ceased to listen to Mr. Sotheby’s words. The mud and water and slime would remain mud and water and slime; the fine old bridge with the toll house, which had once been a chapel, would stay there; nothing would move the gasworks, and Anne felt unable to picture to herself the glittering abomination of which the grocer spoke, on that melancholy river bank.
But Mr. Sotheby went on talking for some time, and, turning her head, Anne could see that his wife was not listening, and her own attention soon wandered. She saw the whip being pointed first in one direction and then in another, andthe white beard which wagged as the grocer opened and shut his mouth, but the stream of words went on unheard. At last Mr. Sotheby picked up the reins, cracked his whip, and they set off for home. Except for Rachel, they had enjoyed themselves as Mrs. Sotheby had predicted.
No one in Dry Coulter would have recognized the slim figure in a fashionable tailor-made dress who took her seat in the boat-train three days later. When she shook her head to refuse the offer of magazines, no hairpins flew on to the platform, and the reason was explained when she removed her rakish little hat: Anne wore an Eton crop. Her whole character seemed to her to have changed, and looking into the mirror in the lid of her little vanity-case, she was pleased with her new self. For a moment she fingered an unused lip-stick and then, laughing to herself, deliberately reddened her lips. She was off to Paris, alone, to seek her fortune. Her father, everyone at Dry Coulter, every experience she had ever had in her life seemed never to have existed. It was a dream which would be speedily forgotten, and reaching for her bag, Anne opened a French book of which Richard had spoken.
Somewhere in the Weald of Kent, the grindingnoise of the brakes, suddenly applied, disturbed her reading. The train dragged itself to a halt and a long silence followed.
At last Anne threw open the window and peered into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen but a red light shining somewhere down the line, and the vague forms of oak trees near at hand. For a moment there was nothing to be heard, and then, suddenly, her ear caught a far-off melodious chuckle and a moment afterwards the first startling clear notes of a bird’s song. The red light changed to green; there was a long puff, and a series of snorts from the engine; the ticking of released brakes, and once more the train was in motion. But Anne had recognized the note of the nightingale.
“Love,” she said to herself, and began laughing.