1
It was only five days till Sunday, yet for Stephen those five days
seemed like as many years. Every evening now she rang up The Grange to
inquire about Angela’s hand and Tony, so that she grew quite familiar
with the butler, with his quality of voice, with his habit of coughing,
with the way he hung up the receiver.
She did not stop to analyse her feelings, she only knew that she felt
exultant—for no reason at all she was feeling exultant, very much alive
too and full of purpose, and she walked for miles alone on the hills,
unable to stay really quiet for a moment. She found herself becoming
acutely observant, and now she discovered all manner of wonders; the
network of veins on the leaves, for instance, and the delicate hearts of
the wild dog-roses, the uncertain shimmering flight of the larks as they
fluttered up singing, close to her feet. But above all she rediscovered
the cuckoo—it was June, so the cuckoo had changed his rhythm—she must
often stand breathlessly still to listen: ‘Cuckoo-kook, cuckoo-kook,’
all over the hills; and at evening the songs of blackbirds and thrushes.
Her wanderings would sometimes lead her to the places that she and
Martin had visited together, only now she could think of him with
affection, with toleration, with tenderness even. In a curious way she
now understood him as never before, and in consequence condoned. It had
just been some rather ghastly mistake, his mistake, yet she understood
what he must have felt; and thinking of Martin she might grow rather
frightened—what if she should ever make such a mistake? But the fear
would be driven into the background by her sense of well-being, her fine
exultation. The very earth that she trod seemed exalted, and the green,
growing things that sprang out of the earth, and the birds,
‘Cuckoo-kook,’ all over the hills—and at evening the songs of
blackbirds and thrushes.
She became much more anxious about her appearance; for five mornings she
studied her face in the glass as she dressed—after all she was not so
bad looking. Her hair spoilt her a little, it was too thick and long,
but she noticed with pleasure that at least it was wavy—then she
suddenly admired the colour of her hair. Opening cupboard after cupboard
she went through her clothes. They were old, for the most part
distinctly shabby. She would go into Malvern that very afternoon and
order a new flannel suit at her tailor’s. The suit should be grey with a
little white pin stripe, and the jacket, she decided, must have a breast
pocket. She would wear a black tie—no, better a grey one to match the
new suit with the little white pin stripe. She ordered not one new suit
but three, and she also ordered a pair of brown shoes; indeed she spent
most of the afternoon in ordering things for her personal adornment. She
heard herself being ridiculously fussy about details, disputing with her
tailor over buttons; disputing with her bootmaker over the shoes, their
thickness of sole, their amount of broguing; disputing regarding the
match of her ties with the young man who sold her handkerchiefs and
neckties—for such trifles had assumed an enormous importance; she had,
in fact, grown quite long-winded about them.
That evening she showed her smart neckties to Puddle, whose manner was
most unsatisfactory—she grunted.
And now some one seemed to be always near Stephen, some one for whom
these things were accomplished—the purchase of the three new suits, the
brown shoes, the six carefully chosen, expensive neckties. Her long
walks on the hills were a part of this person, as were also the hearts
of the wild dog-roses, the delicate network of veins on the leaves and
the queer June break in the cuckoo’s rhythm. The night with its large
summer stars and its silence, was pregnant with a new and mysterious
purpose, so that lying at the mercy of that age-old purpose, Stephen
would feel little shivers of pleasure creeping out of the night and into
her body. She would get up and stand by the open window, thinking always
of Angela Crossby.
2
Sunday came and with it church in the morning; then two interminable
hours after lunch, during which Stephen changed her necktie three times,
and brushed back her thick chestnut hair with water, and examined her
shoes for imaginary dust, and finally gave a hard rub to her nails with
a nail pad snatched brusquely away from Puddle.
When the moment for departure arrived at last, she said rather
tentatively to Anna: ‘Aren’t you going to call on the Crossbys, Mother?’
Anna shook her head: ‘No, I can’t do that, Stephen—I go nowhere these
days; you know that, my dear.’
But her voice was quite gentle, so Stephen said quickly: ‘Well then, may
I invite Mrs. Crossby to Morton?’
Anna hesitated a moment, then she nodded: ‘I suppose so—that is if you
really wish to.’
The drive only took about twenty minutes, for now Stephen was so nervous
that she positively flew. She who had been puffed up with elation and
self-satisfaction was crumbling completely—in spite of her careful new
necktie she was crumbling at the mere thought of Angela Crossby. Arrived
at The Grange she felt over life-size; her hands seemed enormous, all
out of proportion, and she thought that the butler stared at her hands.
‘Miss Gordon?’ he inquired.
‘Yes,’ she mumbled, ‘Miss Gordon.’ Then he coughed as he did on the
telephone, and quite suddenly Stephen felt foolish.
She was shown into a small oak-panelled parlour whose long, open
casements looked on to the herb-garden. A fire of apple wood burnt on
the hearth, in spite of the fact that the weather was warm, for Angela
was always inclined to feel chilly—the result, so she said, of the
English climate. The fire gave off rather a sweet, pungent odour—the
odour of slightly damp logs and dry ashes. By way of a really propitious
beginning, Tony barked until he nearly burst his stitches, so that
Angela, who was lying on the lounge, had perforce to get up in order to
soothe him. An extremely round bullfinch in an ornate, brass cage, was
piping a tune with his wings half extended. The tune sounded something
like ‘Pop goes the weasel.’ At all events it was an impudent tune, and
Stephen felt that she hated that bullfinch. It took all of five minutes
to calm down Tony, during which Stephen stood apologetic but
tongue-tied. She hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry at this very
ridiculous anti-climax.
Then Angela decided the matter by laughing: ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Gordon,
he’s feeling peevish. It’s quite natural, poor lamb, he had a bad night,
he just hates being all sewn up like a bolster.’
Stephen went over and offered him her hand, which Tony now licked, so
that trouble was ended; but in getting up Angela had torn her dress, and
this seemed to distress her—she kept fingering the tear.
‘Can I help?’ inquired Stephen, hoping she’d say no—which she did,
quite firmly, after one look at Stephen.
At last Angela settled down again on the lounge. ‘Come and sit over
here,’ she suggested, smiling. Then Stephen sat down on the edge of a
chair as though she were sitting in the Prickly Cradle.
She forgot to inquire about Angela’s dog-bite, though the bandaged hand
was placed on a cushion; and she also forgot to adjust her new necktie,
which in her emotion had slipped slightly crooked. A thousand times in
the last few days had she carefully rehearsed this scene of their
meeting, making up long and elaborate speeches; assuming, in her mind,
many dignified poses; and yet there she sat on the edge of a chair as
though it were the Prickly Cradle.
And now Angela was speaking in her soft, Southern drawl: ‘So you’ve
found your way here at last,’ she was saying. And then, after a pause:
‘I’m so glad, Miss Gordon, do you know that your coming has given me
real pleasure?’
Stephen said: ‘Yes—oh, yes—’ Then fell silent again, apparently intent
on the carpet.
‘Have I dropped my cigarette ash or something?’ inquired her hostess,
whose mouth twitched a little.
‘I don’t think so,’ murmured Stephen, pretending to look, then glancing
up sideways at the impudent bullfinch.
The bullfinch was now being sentimental; he piped very low and with
great expression. ‘O, Tannebaum, O, Tannebaum, wie grün sind Deine
Blätter’ he piped, hopping rather heavily from perch to perch, with one
beady black orb fixed on Stephen.
Then Angela said: ‘It’s a curious thing, but I feel as though I’ve known
you for ages. I don’t want to behave as though we were strangers—do you
think that’s very American of me? Ought I to be formal and stand-offish
and British? I will if you say so, but I don’t feel British.’ And her
voice, although quite steady and grave, was somehow distinctly
suggestive of laughter.
Stephen lifted troubled eyes to her face: ‘I want very much to be your
friend if you’ll have me,’ she said; and then she flushed deeply.
Angela held out her undamaged hand which Stephen took, but in great
trepidation. Barely had it lain in her own for a moment, when she
clumsily gave it back to its owner. Then Angela looked at her hand.
Stephen thought: ‘Have I done something rude or awkward?’ And her heart
thumped thickly against her side. She wanted to retrieve the lost hand
and stroke it, but unfortunately it was now stroking Tony. She sighed,
and Angela, hearing that sigh, glanced up, as though in inquiry.
The butler arrived bringing in the tea.
‘Sugar?’ asked Angela.
‘No, thanks,’ said Stephen; then she suddenly changed her mind, ‘three
lumps, please,’ she had always detested tea without sugar.
The tea was too hot; it burnt her mouth badly. She grew scarlet and her
eyes began to water. To cover her confusion she swallowed more tea,
while Angela looked tactfully out of the window. But when she considered
it safe to turn round, her expression, although still faintly amused,
had something about it that was tender.
And now she exerted all her subtlety and skill to make this queer guest
of hers talk more freely, and Angela’s subtlety was no mean thing,
neither was her skill if she chose to exert it. Very gradually the girl
became more at her ease; it was up-hill work but Angela triumphed, so
that in the end Stephen talked about Morton, and a very little about
herself also. And somehow, although Stephen appeared to be talking, she
found that she was learning many things about her hostess; for instance,
she learnt that Angela was lonely and very badly in need of her
friendship. Most of Angela’s troubles seemed to centre round Ralph, who
was not always kind and seldom agreeable. Remembering Ralph she could
well believe this, and she said:
‘I don’t think your husband liked me.’
Angela sighed: ‘Very probably not. Ralph never likes the people I do; he
objects to my friends on principle I think.’
Then Angela talked more openly of Ralph. Just now he was staying away
with his mother, but next week he would be returning to The Grange, and
then he was certain to be disagreeable: ‘Whenever he’s been with his
mother he’s that way—she puts him against me, I never know why—unless,
of course, it’s because I’m not English. I’m the stranger within the
gates, it may be that.’ And when Stephen protested, ‘Oh, yes indeed, I’m
quite often made to feel like a stranger. Take the people round here, do
you think they like me?’
Then Stephen, who had not yet learnt to dissemble, stared hard at her
shoes, in embarrassed silence.
Just outside the door a clock boomed seven. Stephen started; she had
been there nearly three hours. ‘I must go,’ she said, getting abruptly
to her feet, ‘you look tired, I’ve been making a visitation.’
Her hostess made no effort to retain her: ‘Well,’ she smiled, ‘come
again, please come very often—that is if you won’t find it dull, Miss
Gordon; we’re terribly quiet here at The Grange.’
3
Stephen drove home slowly, for now that it was over she felt like a
machine that had suddenly run down. Her nerves were relaxed, she was
thoroughly tired, yet she rather enjoyed this unusual sensation. The hot
June evening was heavy with thunder. From somewhere in the distance came
the bleating of sheep, and the melancholy sound seemed to blend and
mingle with her mood, which was now very gently depressed. A gentle but
persistent sense of depression enveloped her whole being like a soft,
grey cloak; and she did not wish to shake off this cloak, but rather to
fold it more closely around her.
At Morton she stopped the car by the lakes and sat staring through the
trees at the glint of water. For a long while she sat there without
knowing why, unless it was that she wished to remember. But she found
that she could not even be certain of the kind of dress that Angela had
worn—it had been of some soft stuff, that much she remembered, so soft
that it had easily torn, for the rest her memories of it were
vague—though she very much wanted to remember that dress.
A faint rumble of thunder came out of the west, where the clouds were
banking up ominously purple. Some uncertain and rather hysterical
swallows flew high and then low at the sound of the thunder. Her sense
of depression was now much less gentle, it increased every moment,
turning to sadness. She was sad in spirit and mind and body—her body
felt dejected, she was sad all over. And now some one was whistling down
by the stables, old Williams, she suspected, for the whistle was
tuneless. The loss of his teeth had disgruntled his whistle; yes, she
was sure that that must be Williams. A horse whinnied as one bucket
clanked against another—sounds came clearly this evening; they were
watering the horses. Anna’s young carriage horses would be pawing their
straw, impatient because they were feeling thirsty.
Then a gate slammed. That would be the gate of the meadow where the
heifers were pastured—it was yellow with king-cups. One of the men from
the home farm was going his rounds, securing all gates before sunset.
Something dropped on the bonnet of the car with a ping. Looking up she
met the eyes of a squirrel; he was leaning well forward on his tiny
front paws, peering crossly; he had dropped his nut on the bonnet. She
got out of the car and retrieved his supper, throwing it under his tree
while he waited. Like a flash he was down and then back on his tree,
devouring the nut with his legs well straddled.
All around were the homely activities of evening, the watering of
horses, the care of cattle—pleasant, peaceable things that preceded the
peace and repose of the coming nightfall. And suddenly Stephen longed to
share them, an immense need to share them leapt up within her, so that
she ached with this urgent longing that was somehow a part of her bodily
dejection.
She drove on and left the car at the stables, then walked round to the
house, and when she got there she opened the door of the study and went
in, feeling terribly lonely without her father. Sitting down in the old
arm-chair that had survived him, she let her head rest where his head
had rested; and her hands she laid on the arms of the chair where his
hands, as she knew, had lain times without number. Closing her eyes, she
tried to visualize his face, his kind face that had sometimes looked
anxious; but the picture came slowly and faded at once, for the dead
must often give place to the living. It was Angela Crossby’s face that
persisted as Stephen sat in her father’s old chair.
4
In the small panelled room that gave on to the herb-garden, Angela
yawned as she stared through the window; then she suddenly laughed out
loud at her thoughts; then she suddenly frowned and spoke crossly to
Tony.
She could not get Stephen out of her mind, and this irritated while it
amused her. Stephen was so large to be tongue-tied and frightened—a
curious creature, not devoid of attraction. In a way—her own way—she
was almost handsome; no, quite handsome; she had fine eyes and beautiful
hair. And her body was supple like that of an athlete, narrow-hipped and
wide shouldered, she should fence very well. Angela was anxious to see
her fence; she must certainly try to arrange it somehow.
Mrs. Antrim had conveyed a number of things, while actually saying
extremely little; but Angela had no need of her hints, not now that she
had come to know Stephen Gordon. And because she was idle, discontented
and bored, and certainly not over-burdened with virtue, she must let her
thoughts dwell unduly on this girl, while her curiosity kept pace with
her thoughts.
Tony stretched and whimpered, so Angela kissed him, then she sat down
and wrote quite a short little letter: ‘Do come over to lunch the day
after to-morrow and advise me about the garden,’ ran the letter. And it
ended—after one or two casual remarks about gardens—with: ‘Tony says
_please_ come, Stephen!’