Chapter III: Picture Postcardism (2)

Barwood ... no, why think of that place? Everything had been so cultured there and so nice, and now it had all been beaten out of her, so that it hurt to go back into it. If there hadn’t been any milk left for lunch you had sent for it and it came, you didn’t have to pay for it on the nail as you did now. And she had been so clean and pretty, it was filthy here, but that had gone, and there was only the memory of it to go back to. Not that they hadn’t always let her run wild, though. But things had changed since then, Mother wouldn’t know her again if she could see her now.... Barwood Vicarage had been one of those houses that have white under the roof. An old wall went round. Little trees grew out of the wall, and their roots made cracks in it. One thick arm of ivy worked its way through just before the gate and made a bulge in the top. There was an old lawn and a gardener who looked much older, but then he can’t have been. It was a deep green, and he mowed it lovingly twice a week with a scythe, he was so proud of his mowing, and it used to be such fun going up to him and saying how well he did it, to watch new wrinkles come out with his smile. His face always looked as if there could be no more wrinkles, and yet there were new ones. Swallows used to build under the roof and then used to show off, they flew so fast and so close. For hours she had watched them rush in a swoop to the door of the nest. They never missed.

The only party at Barwood, the huge lawn and the immense house, the footman in livery, the people, it was another world. There had been ladies on the lawn dressed in marvellous stuffs with brightly-coloured hats--like birds they were. They shook hands very nicely and kindly, then they rushed away to play before the men. Mother had sat talking to Mrs. Haye, with her on the other side, and Mother had laid a restraining hand on her all the time as she half bent over Mrs. Haye. The unhappiness of that afternoon. Who were these people who lived such beautifully easy lives, and what right had they to make you so uncomfortable? The men were such willing idols. A little boy, Hugh, his name had been, had sat next her for a time, sent by his mother. He was at school then. He had asked her if she had been to the Pringles’ dance, and she had blushed--silly little fool--when she had said no. Then he had said something was “awfully ripping,” how at ease he had seemed, and then his glancing blue eyes had fixed and he had gone off and soon was laughing happily with an orange hat. Yes, he had left her for that thing, but you couldn’t blame him. How cool they all were, even when hot after tennis; Mother’s hand had been hot, lying in the lap of her new muslin which Mother had made for her. It might have been yesterday. That hand had seemed to be between her and the rest. Tennis was a pretty game to watch, and the men had laughed so nicely at it, with their open collars. One had had a stud-mark on his skin where the stud had pressed. Then there had been cool drinks on a sideboard--everything was new. Sometimes one of the ladies would say something to her with a quarter of her attention, the rest of her watching the men, and she herself had been too shy to answer.... She had had a little ear under a kiss-curl, that lady. Mother still talked to Mrs. Haye. People would sometimes look at the three of them seated on the bench, and then they would look away again and laugh. Oh, she hated them, it was their sort that had brought them to this. Sitting on the bench there she had begun to long for the tiny lawn and the poor old broken dolly. A dream, those beautifully-dressed people who had been so cool, and whom mother had been so frightened at. Then they had gone, and she had had to say good-bye to Mrs. Haye--“What a fine upstandin’ girl, Mrs. Entwhistle”--and they had begun to walk the mile home. What a little fool she must have made of herself that afternoon. Mother had been so funny, she remembered her so well saying eagerly, “Did you see the green dress that girl with the auburn hair was wearing? And the white one of the girl with the thick ankles?” That had been the first time they had talked dresses as if it was not Mother who bought hers without asking her opinion. That night she had dreamed of a wonderful party with Hugh and his blue eyes and fat cheeks, when he had been terribly nice to her, and when they had had the sideboard to themselves. But behind it all lay the memory of the preparation, her hair being brushed endlessly, her longing to be off and her longing to stay behind, the interminable delays and the too short walk. “Behave nicely, and for heaven’s sake don’t bite your nails.”

And the dolly. Thomas, the old gardener, used to say, “Bean’t she a beauty!” as he leant on his spade as Dolly was shown to him every day. He never said more than that, it was enough. Then there had been the time when she had dropped her, and one arm had come off, just as any grown-up’s might. Fool, fool. She had cried for ages, and had given up all interest in her for a time because she had cried so much. But she went back to her, and Father glued on the arm so that it came off again; still they made it up and between them settled that she should have only one arm.

Then there had been Father’s roses. They bordered the path from the drawing-room French window to the door in the wall. Just over it climbing roses scrambled up and hung down in clusters. And little rose trees stood out on each side of the path, and red and white roses peeped out from the green leaves that hid the thorns. Father was so proud of them, ever since she could remember he used to talk about them at tea. He planted more and more, till the vegetable garden was invaded and in the end was a jungle of roses. His duties had to wait while they were being sprayed, or pruned, or manured. Thomas, of course, was never allowed to touch, it was his grief, he longed to help look after them. She remembered him saying wistfully, “Them be lovely roses, Miss Joan.” Roses, roses, all the way. Ro--o--ses.

There had been another side to the roses. She could remember the quarrels Mother used to have with him over them as if it was yesterday. The manure--best fish manure--cost money, and she would tell Father, in that funny high voice of hers that she used when she was angry, that one or the other would have to go, and then the rest was always whispered, sometimes less, sometimes more, but it must have been the gin or the roses. Father had not minded, nor had Mother after a time. John, the postman, must have begun about then. It was a pretty uniform. So it had gone on.

Mrs. Haye complained that Father never visited until they were dead. Of course he had visited. And the Parochial Church Council had asked for more services, though, of course, no one ever came to church, only Mrs. Haye, and she merely as an example to the village. The almshouse people came, but only because they were so nearly dead. The almshouses were built in dark blue brick, always in half-mourning, among the tombstones. Father had told her about these complaints over the rose trees. He had talked a great deal to her then. Poor Father. So he had planted roses to climb up the church, and they had given him a new interest there till Mrs. Haye had made him pull them down. He had been running away.

There had been a queer light at the back of Mother’s eyes about then--how she understood that light now! At the same time Mother had stopped taking any notice and would only smile tiredly at the things that had made her angry before. She took to painting her lips, and sometimes she would put one of the roses in her hair. Father never said anything about it to _her_, only, lying in bed with the owls hooting, she used to hear quarrels going on, quite often. Bed meant owls then, there were none here. He spent more and more time on the roses about the house. And in the summer he would dream himself away among them, sitting there by the hour while she played on the lawn, putting Dolly to bed in rose petals. Would it do if she painted her lips for George? No, it would frighten him. To-morrow was Monday, he might be about. They had been all right, too, when they had blossomed, great bunches of them, red and white, all over the place. Just like those beautiful picture postcards Mrs. Donner had in the window sometimes. They had been lovely, those days.

Joined on the Vicarage behind there had been a small house with a farmyard and a few buildings. It was the lower farm of Mr. Walker’s. Henry had lived in the house, Henry who was her first love. They had kissed underneath the big thistle in the orchard hedge, only he had been rather dirty. She had seen him driving a cart two weeks ago, only he had looked the other way. Didn’t like to own her now. Before he had always lifted his cap with a knowing smile. Or had he been sorry for her? How funny that first kiss was. She had only been fourteen. All wet. But he remembered. Mrs. Baxter, his mother, with her nice face and her chickens. Mrs. Baxter used to come in sometimes to help Mother with the housework. She always used to say, “God is good to us, Mr. Entwhistle,” when Father was about. And Father used to look serious and say, “Yes, Mrs. Baxter. He is indeed.” He was, then. She used to call her “Miss.”

Then the Wesleyan, “the heretic,” had started a rival Sunday school. He gave a treat once a year and Father never did, so all the children went to him and left Father. He had been angry: “Bribery and corruption; I won’t bribe the children to come to God.” Then they could not afford to give tea at the Mothers’ Meetings, and Mother had lost her temper with Mrs. Walker, who had insinuated that they were lazy. But the real reason why no one came any more must have been the gossip about Father which began about then. But they had become indifferent; they hadn’t cared.

Mrs. Haye had called and had stayed to tea. She, Joan, was allowed butter with her bread and jam. That was only on great occasions. After that the Mothers’ Union started. Mrs. Haye must have stamped on the gossip, for all the women began coming again, every month. Mrs. Haye attended herself the first time. Mother put some cut flowers in a pot just by her. It was a special occasion, so Father’s objection to cutting flowers was forgotten. “Do you want the best rose tree to be the rubbish heap?” Later, there was a woman who tried to teach them how to make baskets, but she forgot how to make them herself in the middle, and nobody minded, they had gone on whispering just the same. They were great times, those.

A fat drop of rain plunked on to the window-sill. Rain. Then another, and another. The air became full of messages, a branch just underneath moved uneasily. There was a rumble miles away that trundled along the sky till it roared by overhead and burst in the distance. Thunder. Rain fell quicker. A broad flame of lightning--waiting, waiting for the crash. Ah. The storm was some way off. The rain walked up the scales of sound, swishing like a scythe swishes. Quick light from another flash lit up the yard, and a bird was flying as if pursued, across the snouted pump. Darkness. The thunder. Nearer.

The air was cool, unloaded. Joan drew back from the window, for she was being splashed by the spray as the drops smashed. The rain fell faster, faster. A terrific sheet of light and all the sky seemed to be tumbling down, moving celestial furniture. Father’s bass came up singing confidently, “There is a green land far away.” Daylight, the sky fought. Darkness and rain. Sheet lightning never hurt anything, but how wonderful to be as afraid as this. Father was rising on the tide of knowledge. “I know, I know,” he cried, and heaven saluted it with her trumpets. He sang a line of the “Red Flag,” but switched off. Swish, swish, said the rain, settling down to steadiness. Father was singing something and taking all the parts. The chickens in the hut made plaintive noises, the cock was being so tiresome. “What a bore the old man is,” they were saying, “but we are so frightened of him.” How wonderful, terror. Joan quaked on the box. Swish, said the rain.

Joan draws her blouse round her and hunches her shoulders. How much fresher it is now. The storm thunders away behind, it has passed over. Mumbles come from below. Laughter. All of her listens. His voice, “Ring out, wild bells.” Always the church bells that he could not escape. Hunted by bells. Crash--the empty bottle. Then he is singing again. Mother had used to play. He is coming upstairs, toiling up, and Joan shivers. Into his room. Silence. Quietly he goes to bed and is asleep. The light in him had gone out. He had forgotten.

She feels cheated. He had been so mad underneath. Why hadn’t he battered at the door? What a shame. All that trembling for nothing. He had forgotten her. She shuts the window, and lighting a candle undresses and lets down her hair. She gets into bed. Sleep.

Eyes closed.

Sleep. Now she would go to sleep.

Turns over.

Sleep.

The lawn. The roses.

It can’t have been sheet lightning because there was thunder. Then it had been dangerous.

A stands for ant. B stands for bee. C stands for cat. Sitting on Mother’s knee tracing the tummy of a, her hand guiding. Later on Mother tried to teach her other things. It used to be a great game to get as many “I don’t know myself, dear’s,” out of her as possible in the morning.

There was the Vicarage pew every Sunday, Mrs. Haye to the left, crazy Kate just behind, then the churchwarden, sniffling, sniffling, and two or three almshouse people. Father always preached out of the green book on the second shelf in the old study, though sometimes he talked about politics. Mrs. Haye would stir violently when she disagreed, which would make Father stutter and Mother angry. Sometimes, though not very often, her son John would come too, he who was blind now. She used to watch him all through the service when he was there. He was so aloof, and there was nothing, no one else to look at. Nothing happened, no one did anything except the organist when she forgot. The service would go slowly on. Weston, the head gardener at Barwood, the only person in the choir, would sing as if he did not care. Father’s voice toiled through the service. Mrs. Haye argued the responses. The organist was paid to come, Weston only came that Mrs. Haye might see that he came. Outside, through the little plain glass window at the side of their pew, the top of an apple tree waved. In summer there were apples on it which she used to pick in her imagination, and any time a bird might fly across, free. The service would go on and finish quite suddenly with a hymn, and then the run home with the blue hills in the distance, with the glimpse, just before the second gate, of the tower of the Abbey church, the greeting of Mrs. Green who was always at her door at the beginning of the last field--no, the last but one, there was the orchard; dinner. It had all gone. Why, since she loved it so? The summers were so wonderful, the winter nights so comfortable. Gone. To-day had ended wrong and had started wrong. Forget in sleep.

The bed was too hot, the sheets clung, one leg was hot against the other. Her hair laid hot fingers about her face. She pulled aside the bed-clothes and lay on top of them on her back, a white smudge in the dark. Outside tepid rain poured. This was cooler.

There was the clock that used to strike bed-time, half-past six. Had she heard the one stroke? Had she forgotten? But no.

“Bed-time, Joan.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Now be a good girl.”

To gain time--“Where’s Daddy?”

“Now, Joan, you know your Daddy works all the evenings. Now go to bed, dearie. I’ll come up and see you.”

Starting in on the gin more likely. Oh, everything was very proper then. Where had he put the empties, though? Of course he can’t have been bad as far back as that, it was only much later. Just before the Mothers’ Meeting she had found Mrs. Baxter sniffling round Father’s room. She herself had smelt the smell too. She had called Mother, who had not noticed anything, of course. After that Father had said that he would dust the room himself, as he could not have his papers being fidgeted with.

“Fidget, fidget, that’s all a woman is when cleaning. Tidying up means hiding. There is an order in my disorder. Yesterday I spent half an hour looking for the church accounts which I found eventually, tidied away into the private correspondence. I can’t bear it. You do understand, don’t you, Mrs. Baxter? Of course I am not blaming you in the least, but ...”

“Very well, Mr. Entwhistle. I understand, sir.” Sniff!

Something like that, but it was the sniff. It was the first sign of a mystery that had been so exciting till she had known.

His private correspondence. That can’t have been anything. Only letters to Mrs. Haye--oh, yes, and to the Bishop. He had scored off the Bishop one day. A great thing. Butter with her bread and jam that day.

But times had been hard. Really they were better off there. The food had dwindled, she had felt hungry a good deal.

“A wage less than a labourer.”

“Oh, yes.”

“What’s that? Well, isn’t it?”

“It wouldn’t be.”

“Well then, approximately. And then there are your clothes to buy and the child’s.”

“And your personal expenses. What you waste.”

“What? I suppose I can’t spend a penny on myself?”

“Run along, Joan, and play.”

“Yes, Mummy.”

Then Uncle Jim, whose death they had waited for so long, died in France. Of fever or something. He had no child and had left all his money to “the poor fellow he’s a parson.” Lord, that joke. Father had seen it in the _Evangelical Supplement_ and had used it for ever when he talked. However, things had become a bit easier then, and probably the spirit merchant had begun to give tick again.

Only one villager had been killed.

“And I said to them, I put it to them point-blank, ‘I won’t sign the minutes when no member of the Parochial Council comes to church,’ I said.”

What was there to get for to-morrow? Milk, more sardines, and some more candles. Perhaps that book Mrs. Donner had in her window for thruppence. She could put the thruppence down to the bread. The title was so thrilling, _The Red Love of White Hope, Scioux, Matt._

She had not read many books in the old days. There was the _Water Babies_, and one or two others, but she had forgotten. And _Robinson Crusoe._ After that she hadn’t read at all. She didn’t really know what she had done. She had sat on the wall a good deal, asking why and how the world was here, and watching people go by. Silly to trouble about why the world was--it was, that was all. On Saturdays in summer dusty motor cars would clatter by on the way to the riverside pub. Birmingham people they were. There were other people sometimes. And four times a day the milk lorry came by with him driving it. Fascinating he was, he looked so wicked.

Was Scioux the name of a town, or did it mean that White Hope was a Red Indian? Mrs. Donner might let her have a look inside. If it was only a town she would not buy it, but with a Red Indian it should be meaty. Then, again, she used to go up to watch the village blacksmith shoe the horses or repair a plough, and he would let her work the handle of the bellows and make the sparks spray out. The corners of his forge had been wonderful, all sorts of odds and ends of rusty iron, and always the chance, as he said, of finding something very valuable among them. Little innocent. But above all there was the blacksmith himself. He was very stupid but the strongest man that ever lived. It was wonderful, his strength. She had tried to lift the big hammer one day, and she had let it drop on her big toe, it was so heavy. Wouldn’t be able to lift it now, even. He had had to carry her back to the Vicarage. Mother had been very angry. But then the days were gone when she kissed to make it well. Poor right big toe.

Occasionally they had gone into Norbury. There used to be the old horse bus along the main road to take you in, and then you were in the middle of the hum and bustle of it, hundreds of people hurrying along in town clothes. Norbury was wonderful with its three thousand inhabitants. And there was Green the draper’s, Mother fingering the stuffs for her new dress--would it wash, would it wear? it did not look to her like very good quality. And the boot shop, Dapp’s, with the smell of leather and hundreds and hundreds of shoes hung about, and the shop assistant’s hair--like a cascade of glue, Father said once outside, but it wasn’t, it smelt lovely--and his way of trying the shoe on, that little finger. Fool. He would be married now, and she, whoever she was, would have someone to wait for in the evenings, to kiss or to have rows with, and wear his ring. She would have his children and they would watch them together. And the farmers, fat and thin, in their pony carts, getting down at the Naiad’s Calf to have a drink. Father had hated the farmers; “they are making a lot of money,” was what he said. And as evening came on they went sometimes to tea at the Deanery, and she would doze by the fire, sitting very correctly in her chair, hearing the boom of the Dean’s voice to Father, and Mother’s shrill complaint to the Dean’s wife, dozing after the huge tea that she had eaten when they weren’t looking. They would have a fit if she went there now.

She hadn’t been in Norbury for ages. There was Mrs. Donner who sold everything. She was a one, that woman. Three and six for a bit of stuff which she wouldn’t like to put on a horse’s back to keep the cold off!

It had been hard work following Mother about. She had hurried so from shop to shop. She must have been hungry for town life again. Those that are town-bred hate the country. They used always to eat lunch in the Cathedral Tea Rooms. Mrs. Oliver, big and fat, who looked after the customers, always came up and said, “Ah, Mr. Entwhistle, so you’ve come to see us townsfolk again, sir.” Mother would bring out the sandwiches. After they had eaten Mother and she would go off to the shops again, while Father went back to the Library. Mother used to call Mrs. Oliver “a designing woman”--sour grapes. And the chemist, mysterious behind his spectacles, in his shop made of shelves and bottles, and cunningly-piled cardboard boxes. The jolting ride home in the dark, with the walk at the end.

Then there was Nancy. All the last years at the Vicarage had been Nancy. What had become of her now? Married with children, most likely, but not to the baker’s son she had been so gone on. Nancy with her fairest hair and skinny legs, she was not nearly as good-looking as her. Her snub nose, and the small watery pink eyes.

They had met in a lane, had smiled, and had made friends. That is, they had never really made friends, she had been far too stupid. But Nancy used to giggle at her jokes, and she liked that. Dolly had been forgotten then.

They talked a great deal about men, with long silences, and Nancy’s giggle and “Oh you’s.” They walked arm in arm, or more often with their arms round each other’s waists, their heads bent, whispering. Lord, what fools they must have looked. Of course Mother was only too glad that she was out of the way, Father too.

They used to walk most in the lane, just outside the house here. She had been in love, oh, how passionate, with Jim who never spoke, and who worked for Mr. Curry. He had been worse than George. But he used sometimes to come home by the lane in the evening, and they would pass him arm in arm. She would give him the sidelong look she had practised in the mirror, but he never did more than touch his cap. She had dropped her handkerchief once, as Nancy had told her they did in the world. They had talked and giggled for days before she had plucked up courage to do it. But of course he did nothing.

Nancy wore a ring round her neck on a bit of cotton. She said at first that Alfred had given it her, but that time under the honeysuckle when she had shown Nancy her birthmark on her leg, she had confessed that she had only got it out of a cracker at Christmas. Nancy used to think her awfully daring.

Then their walks when evening was coming on, when they wandered down the sunken lane. Thick sunlight and thicker shade, when they twined closer together, and walked slower, and were silent. There was the heavy smell of honeysuckle, sweet, which a little fresh air coming down between the banks would begin to blow away. The birds flew quietly from side to side, there were flowers whose names she did not know, and long tufts of grass full of dew. The flowers made dots of colour in the shade, the ground they walked on buried the sound of their feet.... Soon they would come to the gate, and they would sit clinging to each other and balancing, watching the horses scrunch up the grass and the cows lie chewing, idly content. The sky was always different, and the end of a hot day was sleepy. The flies buzzed round, the midges bit. On a piece of fresh manure there would be hundreds of brown flies, and a bee would hurry by. She used to watch the trees most often. There were so many of them, one behind the other, hiding, showing, huddled, alone. Far away a car would blow a horn, or a train would whistle, but it used to feel as if there was everything between them and it. Birds up in the sky that was paling would fly silently with a purpose. They were going to bed, and soon she would go back, have supper, and go to bed. Partridges talked to each other anxiously, as they gathered together, against the dangers of the night. The horses looked round calmly. A dog barked miles away.

Then, as it was getting dark, they would part to go home. Nancy up to the village, and she herself across the fields to the Vicarage. The cows would not rise, and the horses would give her barely a glance. Only a rabbit perhaps would sit up, drum the ground, and flee to his burrow. And he would not bother to go down it, for as soon as she had passed he would be back again nibbling. In spring there would be lambs, absurd and delicious on their long weak legs.

She would climb a warm gate and feel the wet of the dew soaking through her stockings. In front was the Vicarage, all the windows open, waiting, and her glass of milk and biscuits. She would climb the last gate and cross the dusty road, lift the latch of the door in the wall, and the roses, the white ones and the red ones, would greet her. Father might be sitting in the deck-chair on the lawn, smoking his pipe, the blue smoke going lazily up to the other blue of the sky. Mother might be sewing just inside the French window. The milk was cool.

And then she would go up the stairs into her room, the little white bed, the texts round the walls, the open window letting in the dim light and the roses. And she would go to sleep and--was she going to cry?

All gone, the lawn, the roses, the quiet, the protection, her little room, the glass of milk, Jack, the horses, the cows, the walks, for they were not the same, Nancy, those evenings. Fool. The peace, the untroubledness, the old wall, the ... All ...

She went to sleep.

END OF PART II

“----COLLEGE, OXFORD.

“_My dear B. G._

“_I saw you last night in the club, but you cut me dead. Come to lunch Friday to be forgiven. I wanted to talk about poor John. I am so sorry about it. Poor dear, amusing John. I must write to him, though what there is to say I don’t know. Really, these letters of condolence are very difficult._

“_But why did you cut me like that? I saw David Plimmer the other night and he spoke of you with enthusiasm. Don’t forget about lunch Friday, if you cut that I shall know the worst._

“_Yrs.------_

“_Seymour._”

PART III

BUTTERFLY