IT was later in the day, and the zest for Shakespeare had waned.
Virginia had moved from beside the fire and was sitting nearer the
window, in order to get what light there was from the sun just
disappearing behind the opposite hills. She was very busy with some
crochet edging she had lately started. It was the first time within the
memory of living woman that Virginia had been seen with a crochet-hook
in her hand—fancy-work had never been her strong point—hence the
inordinate pride with which she patted out the short fragment on any
available surface at frequent intervals, surveying it from different
points of view with her head cricked at various angles, and calling
upon all and sundry to admire.
After moving nearer the window she again patted out the seven small
scallops on her knee, as usual, and then became meditative. No one
paid much attention to her, however. I was sitting on the settle, with
a heaped-up table before me, absorbed in MSS., which I was reading,
and then sorting into various piles—for printer, for reserve, for
return—and arranging these on the seat beside me; important work, which
accounted for my preoccupation.
Ursula was busily engaged in the laudable endeavour to construct a pair
of child’s knickers out of two pairs of stocking legs. Someone had told
her this could be done. It had appealed to her as a serviceable way to
use up done-with stockings (and she assured me the problem of what to
do with these “done-withs” had been a long-standing mental burden),
while at the same time one might be conferring a benefit upon the
poor. The fact that the modern “poor” would have scorned anything so
economical did not worry her.
At last Virginia broke the silence. “It’s really quite remarkable! I
don’t know that I’ve met with a more extraordinary crochet pattern than
this,” she said thoughtfully.
“Where did you get it from?” I asked rather absently, as I went on with
my work.
“From one of the magazines you are supposed to edit,” she said blandly.
“What is there extraordinary about it?” I inquired, now thoroughly
roused up to give the matter all my attention, while Ursula laid down
the dislocated stocking leg she had been wrestling with.
“Well, it’s like this. There is the pattern, you see,” pointing to a
picture I had seen before, “and there are the directions. When you’ve
worked them through once, that makes one scallop. Do you see?”
We said we saw it quite plainly.
“Then, you notice it says at the very end, ‘go back and repeat from the
first row’? Now this is the extraordinary part of the affair; every
time I go back and repeat from the first row it makes an entirely
different scallop. The last time but one, you see, the scallop came
on the opposite side of the sewing-on edge; I thought _that_ was
interesting enough! But now I find this last scallop has _turned a
corner_. Funny, isn’t it?”
For the first time we gave Virginia’s bit of edging serious attention.
What she had done with those directions it was impossible to say, but
the result was certainly peculiar.
“That will be a valuable piece of lace by the time it’s finished,” I
said. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m making it as a Christmas present for you,” she replied sweetly.
“I think it may help to promote conversation if you display it at your
social functions. I know you’re going to say how unselfish it is of me.
I think, myself, I mellow as I age.”
“Not at all,” I replied politely, and suggested that we should go for a
walk, lest such concentrated thinking should be too much for her.
“If you’d been a properly-minded hostess you would have proposed that
long ago. I’ve been waiting anxiously for it, only there is Ursula
absorbed in that outfit that no masculine infant anywhere would
recognise——”
“Oh, I’ve given up the knicker idea long ago,” interrupted Ursula.
“I’ve turned them into chest-protectors for the old people in the
infirmary. And now, as a war economy, I’m going to enlarge your vests
(I neither ask for, nor expect, gratitude!). The laundry having shrunk
them to waistbands, I shall add an upper and a lower storey.”
“—and _you_ sit hour after hour reading MSS. What are they all about?
What’s that one in your hand, for instance?”
“This one,” holding up some sheets of violently-written paper that
almost burst through the envelope, “is an anonymous letter from some
irate lady who objects to something or someone appearing in our pages.
I haven’t time to read it, but if you care to wade through it——”
“Anonymous letters are so futile.”
“Anything but,” I told her. “It is always a pleasant thing, at the end
of the day, to feel that you have, even in a slight way, contributed
to anyone’s happiness. And I’m sure the lady who dug her pen into
that anonymous letter was very happy when she posted it. Glad am I,
therefore, to be the unworthy instrument permitted to promote her joy!”
Virginia merely snorted. “What’s the next MS. about?”
“This is a very long poem on the War, and the writer explains that she
has made all the lines run straight on in order to save paper, but
doubtless I can find out where it rhymes. It begins ‘Hail, proud mother
of nations who dwell in these sea-girt islands for centuries past and
centuries yet to be——’”
Virginia said she’d skip the rest, please, and wasn’t there a little
light fiction anywhere in the chaos before me?
“This is a story of a beautiful Russian princess who was doomed to live
in a lonely castle, with no one but her aged and decrepit nurse, in
the very centre of a pathless Siberian forest, hundreds of miles from
everybody, until the spell should be broken——”
“What spell?” inquired Ursula.
“(I don’t know—the writer doesn’t say)—until the spell should be
broken, when she would be free. She was the most exquisite vision that
ever burst upon human sight. Not only were her features perfect, and
her hair a rippling cascade of gold, but her dress was grace and beauty
combined.”
“Then it wasn’t one of _this_ season’s models!” ejaculated Ursula,
“hence it must have been out-of-date. All the same, I’d like to know
who was her dressmaker. Did they think to mention the name?”
(“No, that is not stated.)—She used to spend her days listening to
the wolves who congregated all around the castle howling and gnashing
their horrid fangs, till one day an honest, sturdy forester approached,
and with one fell swoop slew dozens of them. Whereupon the Princess
Elizabeth—for such was her name—opened the door and cried, ‘Welcome,
deliverer!’ and in less time than it takes me to tell you, that aged
and decrepit nurse had prepared, all unaided, a sumptuous wedding
banquet, while gorgeously apparelled guests arrived in battalions from
nowhere. Then, just as they were about to be married, the honest,
sturdy forester, no longer able to conceal his identity, confessed that
he was indeed the Prince.”
“What Prince?” inquired the interrupter again.
“I don’t know, and the writer doesn’t say, and I wish you would
remember, Ursula, that in the larger proportion of MSS. sent to editors
it is customary for the writers to omit the essential details!”
“Then I’d just as soon go for a walk as hear any more,” she said with
decision.
Whereupon we got into big coats and thick gloves and tied on our hats
with motor scarfs, I don’t mean the filmy wisps one wears when motoring
in the park, but those large, solid, thick, brown, woollen scarves
that look as though they had been made from a horse-blanket—the sort
that the West End window dresser in desperation labels “dainty!” But
the air was bitingly cold, and we were so high up among the hills,
that no wraps would have been too warm that day. Then we started off,
after I had said a final word to Eileen about the necessity for keeping
the kettle boiling, as we shouldn’t be gone long. She had assured me
many times already that she wasn’t the least bit nervous about being
left alone—rather liked it, in fact. She was blissfully engaged at the
moment in trying to construct a “dainty evening camisole” (as per some
penny weekly she had bought coming down) out of the satin ribbon and
lace from Virginia’s last year’s hat.
The small white dog with the brown ears accompanied us to the gate, but
decided that, with the thermometer just where it was at that moment,
home-keeping hearts were happiest; so he promptly returned to the
hearthrug.
The sun had disappeared, but there was still light on the hill-tops,
though the valley below was fast settling down to darkness. Virginia
suggested the lantern, but I thought we should not need it, more
especially as a moon was due immediately. So we set off at a swinging
pace.
Already, owing to the severity of the frost, the roads rang like
iron to our tread. Every stalk and twig was glistening with rime and
feathered with hoar-frost. No sign of life did we see in all that
walk. Where were the birds, and squirrels, and rabbits, and pheasants,
and all the hundreds of timid wild things we were accustomed to meet
on our summer rambles? We hoped they were safely tucked away in barns
or burrows, or sleeping in warm hayricks, for nothing else above
ground would give them any shelter. I thought of the row of twittering
swallows that always perch themselves along the ridge of the cottage
roof on hot summer afternoons, and felt glad they had gone off to a
warmer climate.
But for ourselves, we would not have exchanged the weather that moment
for any other, no matter how balmy. There is something remarkably
exhilarating in the clear cold air of such a day on the hilltops, and
as we mounted up and up our spirits rose with us—even though the roads
were rough and terribly hard on war-time leather.
I once remarked to a local resident that I found our stony hillside
roads a bit trying, to say nothing of the side paths.
“Well now, I do be s’prised to hear ’ee a-say that,” he replied. “For
the on’y time I were up to Lunnon—I went for a day scursion—d’you know
my legs did that _hake_ when I got back, I were a week getting over
it. It were all along o’ they flat stones what they do have up there;
why, if you believe me, I was a-near toppling over every other minute.
There weren’t ne’er a blessed thing to catch holt onter with your toes!
I felt as though the pavemint was a-coming up to knock my head. Now on
these here roads o’ ourn you can’t slip far, because there’s always
summat of a rock or big stone to trip up agin.”
For myself, however, I sometimes think I would prefer the said rocks
and stones if they were boiled a bit, and then mangled.
* * * * *
At last we reached the crest of the hill, and paused to get our breath.
The silence was awe-inspiring. At all other times there is a persistent
hum of insects, or cheep of birds, or the rustling of leaves and
swaying grasses—movement and sound somewhere, night as well as day.
But when the earth has been swept by the magic of frost, then there is
silence indeed. From where we stood, we might have been alone on the
very edge of the world. No house was visible, and although we knew that
the little village lay in the valley below us, we could see nothing of
it.
All was grey, merging into indigo in the depths of the coombes. Grey
were the trees on the farther hills, grey unrelieved by the lights and
shadows that gaily chase each other over the steeps in sunny weather,
as the white clouds sail across the sky above them.
Near at hand the trees took on more individuality. The straight columns
of the larches were mysterious-looking and awe-inspiring, suggesting
regiments of soldiers suddenly called to a halt. Pale grey beeches,
that in damp weather show a vivid emerald green down the north side
of their huge trunks, where moss flourishes undisturbed, were now
stretching out strong bare arms over the carpet of many years’ leaves
lying thickly beneath them. Silver birch stems gleamed in contrast
to the glossy dark green of innumerable aged yews that dotted the
woods—ancient inhabitants, indeed, standing hoary and heroic like some
dark-visaged guardians of the forest, among a host of newcomers of a
far younger generation.
* * * * *
But while we were standing there, a sound suddenly broke the stillness,
a sound I have heard hundreds of times on those hills, yet never
without an eerie feeling. It begins far away, a low undertone murmur;
gradually it comes nearer and nearer, getting louder and louder, till
it becomes almost a roar, and then—_diminuendo_—it passes on and is
finally lost in the far distance.
It is only the wind as it suddenly rushes through the river gorge; but
as it tears at the forests on the hillsides, and lashes the branches
together, it produces a strangely uncanny sound, more especially when
the trees are bare and extremely vibrant.
Hearing this, one can understand the origin of the old-time legends
about headless horsemen galloping past on windy nights, and similar
hair-raising stories. As a child, when I often visited at another house
in this region (for four generations of us have climbed these hills and
explored the valleys), I heard these same “headless horsemen” gallop
along the slopes on many stormy nights; and despite my years and my
common sense, I still feel the same creepy shiver in the back of my
neck when they have a particularly mad stampede past my cottage door,
for then they always pause to give the weirdest of howls through the
keyholes!
“How dark it is getting!” exclaimed Ursula. “Where is your moon? And
just hear the wind coming up the valley!”
It had not reached us as yet, but the words had scarcely left her lips
before it came—swish—full upon us. We had to grip each other and plant
our walking-sticks firmly on the ground to keep our feet. And then
we knew what the sudden change meant, for next moment down came the
snow—snow such as the town-dweller knows nothing about, for in cities
there are buildings to break the force of the elements; but on these
heights there is nothing to impede the fury of the storm as it gallops
over the upper regions, crashing and smashing as it goes.
The snow dashed in our eyes; it got inside our coat-collars; it clogged
up our hair; it swirled and “druv” (as they say locally) till it made
our heads dizzy, and our eyes smarted with trying to see through the
whirling mass.
Owing to our exposed position we felt the full force of the storm, and
it was a difficult matter to make headway in the blinding flakes and
stinging wind.
“There is a short cut through the wood, further along the road; let us
get home as soon as we can,” I said, leading the way, and we staggered
on against the blizzard, till we came to the wood, and plunged from
the road into its recesses. But I soon found it is one thing to know
the way through a dense mass of trees in bright sunshine with a
path clearly defined, and quite another thing to find one’s way in
the twilight, with a gale blowing in one’s teeth and every landmark
obliterated by the rapidly falling snow.
We stumbled along for some time, over the rough stones and great
boulders, lovely enough in summer with their coverings of ivy, moss,
and fern, but very painful and cold for the shins when you tumble
over them in the snow. Before long it was quite evident to me that
we were merely wandering at large among the trees, and scrambling
among the undergrowth of stalks and bracken, our hats catching in the
hanging branches, our skirts being clutched at by the all-pervading
bramble—path there was none. I had to admit I had lost my bearings,
though as we were going steadily downhill, I knew we should arrive at
the other side presently, as downhill was our destination. What little
conversation we indulged in—beyond the usual exclamations every time we
tripped over something—had to be done in shouts, so high was the wind.
In this way we tumbled on for about half an hour. Just as Virginia was
confiding to me—_fortissimo_ above the blizzard—how she wished she
had been nicer to her family when she had the opportunity, and how
sweet and forgiving she would have been to them all had she but known
that I was going to take her out to an arctic grave, the snow ceased,
the clouds broke, the moon appeared, and at the same time we cleared
the wood and struck a familiar lane—“Agag’s Path” we had named it, on
account of the need for walking delicately.
By way of keeping up our spirits, Ursula began to chant, to some
lilting, sprightly tune, that most lugubrious poem, “Lucy Gray.”
“The storm came up before its time,
She wandered up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb,
But never reached the town.”