Chapter VI

Mrs. Lee-Mittison sat with the packets of lunch piled up round her like some homely goddess. She had spread out the mackintosh, on which she hoped she might later persuade Herbert to arrange himself (unobtrusively, for she did not wish to humiliate him before these dear girls who, unlike the girls of her own generation, seemed to be able to sit on questionably dry grass without after-effects). She sat with her hat tilted forward to shelter her eyes from the glare, looking down at her work but not knitting, her whole being in a state of happy suspension, a pause as distant from life as a trance. The sun wooed her persistently and at last, with a gesture for her almost dionysiac, she undid and flung open the woolly jacket buttoned across her chest.

Herbert had taken the girls ahead with him further along the way to the village; she could hear his voice upraised in a sustained and happy monologue and now and then a thin exclamation from one of the Bransomes. They must be picking anemones. Surprised at herself, she sat with bliss in her little oasis of solitude. She looked down the slope beside her into the valley below and saw a little house, with a blue door whose colour delighted her, beside the bed of a river. Two lemon trees were beside it, and this little house which she seemed at once to inhabit gave her the most strange sensation of dignity and of peace. She saw herself go climbing up the garden from terrace to terrace calling the goat, and the goat, beautiful in its possessedness come loping down to meet her, asking to be milked. At this she paused in perplexity for she had never milked anything and turned cold at the thought of touching the udders of an animal. But in a moment this was over and she carried the milk, frothing warm in the pottery jug, inside into the dark interior of the house which would not be dark from within. Here something turned her back and she could not follow herself; she saddened, feeling excluded from some very intimate experience. The house was lonely, and in autumn when the river was brimming the rushing-past of the water must be terrifying; its echo would line with sound the upright walls of the valley. On still spring nights the thud of a falling lemon would be enough to awaken one in terror.

The villino suddenly dropped away from her eye as though she had put down a telescope and as her life sprang back into focus she must have been dizzy, for she felt sick at the thought of their hotel bedrooms that stretched, only interspersed with the spare-rooms of friends, in unbroken succession before and behind her. She felt sick at the thought of for how many mornings more she would have to turn the washstand into an occasional-table by putting away the basin and jug in the cupboard and drape with Indian embroideries the trunk in which they concealed their boots.

Mrs. Lee-Mittison saw that Sydney Warren and Mr. Milton had wandered away by themselves and that Veronica Lawrence, apparently unattached, was strolling among the olive-trees a little way down the slope. This did not seem like Veronica, and it was not like Veronica, either, to remain so persistently unaware of the ascending Englishman in the grey flannel coat coming so rapidly up towards her. Mrs. Lee-Mittison with faint misgivings thought she recognized the set of those shoulders and leaning forward a little saw from the shape of the head that this was indeed Victor Ammering. She quivered; the hill was too small, there were too many other hills for her to believe that this could be anything but a deliberate intrusion. Herbert particularly had not wanted Mr. Ammering. He did not care at all for the young man, who was unintelligent, too talkative and did not bring at all a nice atmosphere into a party. Herbert was quite sure the girls didn’t like Mr. Ammering either and would not wish him to be invited; that was the most delightful aspect of modern girls, they all liked just being jolly together.

“Veronica,” she called sharply, “here just a minute, my dear!” She might have been calling back a paddling child from under the menacing curve of a breaker.

“What for?” Veronica looked up at her in astonishment.

“Mr. Ammering seems to be coming up the hill. I think he must be making some mistake.”

“Well, it isn’t a private hill!” said Veronica. “I suppose he’s simply going for a walk.”

“Don’t you think we had better tell him,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison, “that his friends are not up here? It would save him the climb.” She fidgeted and swayed slightly; she was gathering Herbert’s happiness, all his little plans for the day, for protection under her feathers, and she gave such an impression of being ruffled-out, apprehensive and angry that she did actually make Veronica think of a hen, with head a little on one side and blinking bright eyes.

“How odd,” said Veronica, sitting down on the grass still a little below her, “that Victor should have hit on this hill. I thought he was playing tennis. However, it’s his walk, and I suppose it’s his hill as much as ours. I can’t see that we can do anything about it, Mrs. Lee-Mittison, except be rude.” She took off her hat and shook back her fluffy cropped hair.

“I hope I shall not be _rude_,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison with a quiver in her voice.

“Hullo, Victor, I thought you were playing tennis!”

“Do I look as if I was playing tennis?”

“Fool!—You can’t come here, it’s somebody else’s picnic.”

“Well, I suppose I can walk about on the hill!”

“Fool—you do look hot! Go and walk about on one of the other hills.”

“It does not matter to _us_, Veronica,” called down Mrs. Lee-Mittison, “Mr. Ammering’s plans for the day are his own, of course. I think you had better come up here, if you don’t mind and help me put out the lunch. Then we will call back the others.”

Veronica pulled three pieces of bark from an olive-tree and threw them in Victor’s face, then she turned her back on him and came scrambling up the hill. Mrs. Lee-Mittison produced from her bag and spread out a printed paper table-cloth; her smile of competency usual to these occasions was a little dimmed by a still apprehensive consciousness of Victor’s presence below. With Veronica’s assistance she arranged the eatables. Veronica piled up the oranges in the middle of the cloth and ringed them round with Mrs. Lee-Mittison’s little biscuits and the chocolates wrapped in scarlet and gold. “There: the young housewife!” she cried, sitting back on her heels complacently. Mrs. Lee-Mittison thought of the cottage below and had once more the queer little pang.

Sydney and James Milton returned by the loop of the road, which they had followed, they said, for a short distance in order to look into the further valley. She conveyed by the manner of her walk and by an air of serene inattentiveness that it was nothing to her that he should choose to accompany her; it must be his mistake; she had nothing to offer. Looking and feeling like her friend Mrs. Kerr she sat down and turned her face to the view. Mr. Milton was not still so hot, but he had been bouncing half a dozen conversational balls assiduously, and it was in evident relaxation that he lay down on his back on the grass like a dog and smiled up at the sky.

“Here, we can’t all lie down, you know, it’s dinner!” screamed Veronica. “Who do you think’s going to drop the hard-boiled eggs into your mouth? _Gerrup!_” At the indescribable sound she made he sat up astonished. He had never been spoken to like this before and it deeply gratified him. By the time the others had assembled he was smiling and passing the food about and chaffing Veronica, perhaps a shade laboriously.

“I say, I’d no idea you were a parson.”

“Don’t I look like a parson?”

“Oh no. I’m perfectly staggered. You may be a bishop or anything. Was I terribly disrespectful? Well, it’s not fair, anyway, you ought to wear _that_ kind of collar.”

“The dog-collar? Dear me, you think I ought to advertise?” He was elated to find himself so much at ease, so disarmingly secular. “You spotted me, didn’t you?” He turned to Mr. Lee-Mittison, hoping to be contradicted.

“My dear fellow, that is neither here nor there. I have always said that there is no reason why a parson shouldn’t be a Sportsman?”

“That’s what my father says,” contributed one of the Bransomes. “I mean that there is no reason why a clergyman shouldn’t be a _man_. A Man of the World, you know.”

“What on earth do you mean by ‘a Man of the World’?” asked Eileen Lawrence scornfully. She had no patience with other people’s vocabularies. The Bransome coloured and seceded from the conversation. She resolved that when she had returned to England she would cultivate a manner like the Lawrences’.

“Speaking as a Churchwoman—” tendered Mrs. Lee-Mittison, busy with the sandwiches.

“Anything at all, in fact,” said Sydney, “so long as he is nothing of the priest?”

“God forbid!” said Mr. Lee-Mittison seriously. He was a Protestant.

“Well, it’s God’s affair——”

“Oh, there’s Victor!” shrieked Eileen, “I say, do look, Veronica, there’s Victor down there in the trees—look, he’s eating an orange. Hi, _coo-ee_ Victor: come up!”

“Oh, we don’t want Victor up here,” Veronica said, “he’s a bore. Oh shut up, Eileen, leave him alone with his beastly orange. Messing it about all over his face, too, like a kid in a train.”

“I think as Mr. Ammering is evidently on his own, Eileen, we ought not to interrupt his walk.” Mrs. Lee-Mittison had spoken with authority but Eileen took no notice and already the foundations of the picnic shook. Everybody stopped eating, rolled over sideways on their elbows and looked down. The Bransomes were intensely interested—how pathetic! “Why not ask him up?” said Sydney. James Milton suggested “Would you like me to go down?”

“I think we had better not disturb Mr. Ammering’s walk,” repeated Mrs. Lee-Mittison despairingly. They all pointed out to her that he was already sitting down. She looked across at Herbert, the roof of her mouth turned cold: Herbert seemed so very much put out. She knew so much better than he did how often Herbert was hurt. Now all that lovely circle in which he most completely came alive had wavered, bulged and broken. She began a little wildly to recruit for attention. She tugged at Violet Bransome’s sleeve, she leaned sideways and tugged at the cousin’s; she signalled lavishly to Veronica and to Sydney. “I think Mr. Lee-Mittison has a story to tell you. I think he is going to tell you all a story now—Mr. Milton,” she whispered across, “do ask Eileen Lawrence to stay quiet. And ask Herbert (he’s so far away from me) ask him to begin....”

Mr. Lee-Mittison began the story, which was about Malay. He raised his voice, drew out his words and was emphatic. One by one the girls returned their eyes to his face reluctantly. The more suggestible among them took their cues from Mrs. Lee-Mittison; and echoed her small exclamations. Herbert’s wife with tightly-folded hands was leaning forward eagerly. It would not have been thought possible that she had heard this story before were it not for the glance around with which at the approach of any salient point she would gather up the attention of the circle, and the dissyllabic titter with which she anticipated the humorous passages. Once she gripped a Bransome’s hand convulsively—“Isn’t it exciting?” After about ten minutes of this recital Victor Ammering appeared on the outskirts of the circle, stepped across the botany case and sat down. “I say” he said, “—excuse me, sir!—have any of you got a match?”

“Then we saw the native crawling out from the darkness of the bushes, most impenetrable darkness, into a patch of moonlight. He had a knife between his teeth. It was a ticklish moment. My friend Murphy whispered, ‘Don’t fire!’ We prepared—” Hanging breathlessly on his own words, Mr. Lee-Mittison looked intensely round at them. Their attention had again been dissipated. Only Violet Bransome, now uniquely faithful, echoed: “You prepared—And then——?”

“I will wait,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison staring straight before him, “until the young ladies over there have finished talking.”

“Oh, thanks most awfully,” Victor was exclaiming, his voice heard bleakly in the silence. Sydney, saying “Bounder!” in a soft aside, beneath her breath, had handed him across the matches. “And oh, look here,” Victor added, “do go on and all that. It sounds thrilling. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“A story interrupted half way through can hardly be of interest. Pray don’t let us keep you from your walk.” Mr. Lee-Mittison glared; none of the party felt comfortable. Victor, who was not really such a bad young man and who had been simply dominated by the most developed of his instincts, heaved himself off the ground and declared himself ready to depart again. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I simply came to say that if any of you wanted to wash your hands and faces after eating oranges, I’ve found a tank down there among those gardens, quite clean, not a bit slimy and with no frogs.”

“We have handkerchiefs, Mr. Ammering,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison.

“Have I got orange on my face or anything?” asked Veronica and she turned her face up to Victor suddenly, away from the others, so that they could only guess by his expression what he saw there.

“You have,” said he. “You’ve got orange right up round your ears. And you’ve got little bits of egg and stuff along your mouth.”

“We have handkerchiefs,” repeated Mrs. Lee-Mittison.

“I’ll wash,” declared Veronica, and suddenly, incredibly, outrageously she had gripped Victor’s hand, hoisted herself up by it, and walked away with Victor down the hill. She left a gap across which the others looked at one another, and which they felt unable to draw up and fill. Mrs. Lee-Mittison wished that they would all go away now, for a moment, she wanted to move up closer and sit next to Herbert. There was an uncertain silence. Then James Milton, who had been subject all his life to a kind of idiocy of nervousness, burst out laughing. The horrid sound which he could not contain appalled him; till at last to cover it he said to Mrs. Lee-Mittison, “Youth calls to youth, doesn’t it?” She replied, “I’m afraid I do not understand you.” They all stared, Sydney with such contempt that her face remained imprinted burningly upon his memory. Presently, intending no offence but entirely forgetting that the story was to be continued, she also got up and strolled round the hill. She wanted to enjoy her own thoughts which seemed all day to have been ceaselessly interrupted.

Veronica and Victor scrambled very companionably down towards the tank. The descent was in places almost precipitous, they had to lower themselves from tuft to tuft of grass. Once, coming to an empty slope they lay and rolled down it; at another point they sat and slid. When trees interposed they swung themselves joyously, like young apes, from trunk to trunk. Every now and then they reappeared into sight of those above who, never ceasing to be aware of them, watched with covert but passionate interest. Their indifference, their recklessness, stirred something in the beholders, either envy or anger. At last almost simultaneously they leapt with a dual cry just audible to their friends into the soft tilled earth of a peasant’s garden. The little terrace projected like a shelf, like an apron-stage, over the depths of the valley. Here was Victor’s tank; round which, forgetting to wash, they soon began a most delectable water-battle.

“Look,” cried one of the Bransomes irrepressibly, “they’re splashing each other with water!” The rest remained perfectly blank; Mrs. Lee-Mittison knitted.

Veronica paused, and did her reputation the credit of a long enquiring guarded upward glance, which the steepness of the ground, the long grass and the closeness of the trees at a point combined to baffle. One’s own visibility is impossible to calculate. Then she scooped something out of the tank and put it down Victor’s neck. He seized her wrist and doubled it backwards. She writhed, and with a voluminous and graceful movement kicked him. As in a dance he whirled her round him suddenly and kissed her ear and her cheek. She hesitated, balanced against him, then appearing reconciled to his change of tactics, flung her head back and allowed him to continue. He must have kissed her lips then for the first time; their stillness for some moments was profound.

Sydney’s imagination had failed her, she found herself disappointed in her own society and was coming back slowly to rejoin the others. To her, looking down unawares, the couple gesticulating soundlessly below in the sunshine appeared as in some perfect piece of cinema-acting, emotion represented without emotion. Then she wondered by what words now unknown to her she might arrive at this: to be seen swinging back against a man’s shoulder in that abandon of Veronica’s. She wondered whether at such a moment she would be cut off from herself, as by her other emotions. She watched the miniature unreal Veronica toss back her hair and walk away. At Victor she forgot to look again: she had not thought of him.

She descended upon the others who seemed to be stupefied by something and to be at the same time scrutinizing one another and avoiding each other’s scrutiny. Then with a burst of talking they all came alive again and began clearing up the lunch, collecting pieces of paper which had strayed away and sweeping up orange-peel and egg-shells from among the grass. Eileen Lawrence whistled, Mr. Lee-Mittison sang. He was singing angrily a song that nobody knew. His wife was everywhere, she thanked the girls profusely as they heaped the debris into her basket. James Milton offered cigarettes about spasmodically, his cheeks burned. He kept striking matches, burning his fingers with them and throwing the matches away again with exclamations of unnecessary violence. He had never seen a man and woman kiss before and was battering in a kind of despair against the glass wall that divided him from experience. He was thankful, with a tinge of regret, that Sydney had not been among them; then he turned and saw her behind him, talking to Eileen Lawrence. He could not tell how long she had been there. Sydney was asking, “Do you mean to _tell_ Veronica?” Eileen surprised him by saying, “Not unless she asks me—what’s the good?”

To the Lee-Mittisons, married, of an older generation, it was only possible for their guests to attribute one opinion. “Shocked!” they all assured themselves and instinctively moved away. James Milton found himself between two of the girls and walked with them along the side of the hill; the others distributed themselves ahead of him. He realized that the party had been divided against itself transversely into generations rather than vertically into sexes, and he was flattered to find himself accepted in this camp. They all moved off together talking vaguely about anemones, the village and the view.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee-Mittison remained alone. She did not look at her husband, as she was afraid she might look at him stupidly, sympathetically, and knew that this would annoy him. After a pause through which her needles clicked she said: “Well, I think it’s going off well, don’t you? They all seem to be happy.”

He was walking restlessly round a small circle in which he seemed to be enclosed. His thumbs were tucked beneath the lapels of his coat and he stared round him critically at the expanse of day to be seen from the top of the hill. To left and right the sky sagged down to lower horizons.

“Happy? I daresay. I guaranteed to keep you thoroughly happy.”

“They’re dear girls. They’ll be coming back soon, won’t they?”

“Of course,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison, still unable to catch sight of any of his party whom the hills seemed to have demolished. “I had suggested their going off on their own for a bit.”

“Oh, I expected you must have. The lunch was nice, wasn’t it—the little biscuits?”

“Excellent.”

“It is nice to be alone a little. Oh Herbert, sit down on the mackintosh—wait, I’ll bring it over to you.”

“The hills are a bit lonely—I don’t quite like them going away so far.”

“Oh, they’ll be quite all right together—English girls. What a lovely bright day! We are always lucky in our weather.”

They were sitting side by side on the grass like a young couple and for a moment she thought he might be going to pat her hand. She stopped knitting and waited, then, after a glance at his profile, quietly continued. She was saying to herself, “Oh, my dear Herbert, my poor Herbert!” and her mind grew dark with resentment against the others. If one might only, in intimation of what one felt, have pressed up ever so gently against his arm. But he had always to be considered successful; his head, though frequently bloody, might never be admittedly bowed. “_Very_ lucky,” she repeated, “in our weather.”

“_Halloo!_” he shouted all at once, his hands like a triton’s making a cave round his mouth. “Halloo-alloo-alloo-alloo!” They listened and heard only an echo at the end of a valley. He shouted again; still nobody answered.

“I’m a bit disappointed in Milton,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison. “I didn’t take him for that sort of fellow. I don’t think I’ll ask him to come with us again.”

“Perhaps better not,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison.