The worst of having a secret is that, if you are of a friendly,
communicative nature, it never lets you rest till you have told it to
somebody, and then it is no longer a secret. Daniel wanted badly both to
tell his secret and keep it, to eat his cake and have it. He nearly told
his mother when he unexpectedly met her going downstairs the next
morning--he had a queer feeling of treachery towards her, as if she
would have hated to see another woman set up in the place she had never
attempted to fill.
He put his arms round her neck and kissed her.
“What’s the matter with you, Dan?”
“I dunno.”
“You’re like a great baby.”
“I’m only saying good morning.”
“That’s a new way for you to say it.”
“I’m sorry--I can’t help it, mum.”
He took away his arms from her and went out.
It was his “early day” at the Rectory. One of Mr. Marchbanks’ many
peculiarities as a clergyman was his fondness for having services
without any congregation. Every morning the little rasping bell of
Bullockdean Church made a short clamour at seven, and the village priest
stood before the village altar while the village yawned and pulled on
its trousers and lit its fires. Apparently the thing could not be done
if Mr. Marchbanks was quite alone, so three or four of the local youth
took turns to kneel beside him in the cold morning shadows and answer
for Bullockdean. By a process of the survival of the fittest, three
mornings out of the seven had fallen to Daniel’s share. Afterwards he
would have breakfast at the Rectory and do one or two jobs about the
place before going home.
To-day he was a little flurried over his duties. In church he stammered
and gabbled and forgot his “piece”--and at the Parsonage he burnt the
boiled eggs, which, as everybody knows, is an achievement usually beyond
the reach of the worst cook. The lady who “helped” at the Rectory was
often late, and Daniel was used to cooking the breakfast as well as
eating it. He was, as he put it, “fond of messing about,” and certainly
did not as a rule produce a worse meal than Mrs. Ades herself. But this
morning he was demoralized, and not only brought an incinerated
breakfast to the table, but ate it heedlessly, without comment or
grimace. His friend could see that something was on his mind and very
near his tongue.
“Mr. Marchbanks, have you ever been to Batchelors’ Hall?”
“No, never; but I’ve met Shackford on one or two occasions.”
“Ever met the girls--Lucy and--er--Belle?”
“I met Belle once out walking with young Munk, and he introduced me. But
I haven’t seen her since.”
“Oh, then you’d ...” Dan’s cheeks and tongue were burning. “I say....”
“Well?”
“What would you say if ... I mean, how would you like to keep a pig?”
The clergyman looked startled. Was this the fruit of Dan’s soul in
travail?
“I shouldn’t like it at all.”
“I’d take care of him for you, and you could feed him on scraps and
waste ... or get a sow and mate her, and we’d make money out of the
litters.”
In spite of various efforts on Mr. Marchbanks’ side and several
temptations on his own he stuck to pigs till the end of breakfast.
Even by then the “help” had not arrived, and Dan, who could never quite
see where a man’s work ended and a woman’s began, proceeded to a
frenzied washing up and an unceremonious making of the priest’s bed by
pulling down the blankets. He was smoothing the quilt over his handiwork
when a ring came at the front door bell.
Dan thundered downstairs to open it, and found Jess Harman on the step
with Dr. Penny’s twins in a push-cart beside her.
“Hallo, Dan! I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Mrs. Ades hasn’t come, and I’m doing her work.”
Jess, who had as pleasant a smile as her sister Maudie, grinned widely
in derision.
“I reckon you are. I reckon you’ve smashed the plates----”
“I haven’t!”
“And just pulled down the cover over the bed and thought you’d made it.”
Dan blushed guiltily.
“And have you emptied the slops?”
“No.”
“D’you think they’ll empty themselves? Or d’you expect the poor man to
empty them? Go on--you’re a fine housemaid.”
“Is it why you’ve called--to tell me that?” asked Dan saucily.
“No--I’ve got a message for the rector from Mrs. Penny. She says, ‘May
she put off the carving class from Tuesday to Wednesday as her cook
wants to change her night out?’--a verdible answer--‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
“I’ll give it,” said Dan, turning into the house, “and then maybe you’ll
come and help me with the work, since you’re so smart.”
“And what’s to become of the kids? I’m hired to look after them.”
“Bring them in, and we’ll find something to keep ’em quiet. Let me help
you with the pram.”
Jess wanted only a little persuasion, and the twins were brought into
the kitchen, while Dan went off to the study with Mrs. Penny’s message.
“It’s ‘yes,’” he cried as he came back. “He says she may go to hell if
she likes.”
“I’m sure he never said anything of the kind.”
“Didn’t say it, but he meant it. He doesn’t care when she has her old
damn class.”
“Dan, what’s the matter with you? You’re getting beyond yourself.”
It was his secret again, tormenting him in a new way. It had already
made him sentimental, then embarrassed, now it made him uproarious. He
took the boy-twin out of his pram and tossed him up and down in his
strong arms.
“Daniel--a-done do--or I’ll go at once. You’ll hurt him--he’s getting
frightened.”
“Not he! He’s loving it.”
The entertainment certainly appeared successful. Young Michael Penny
yelled with delight, and his sister Lois yelled with her lust for the
same experience. Daniel shouted with laughter and Jess scolded him at
the top of her voice. The Parsonage rang with noise--the scream of
children’s voices, the roar of a man’s, the scold of a woman’s. In his
study the parson put his fingers to his ears and wondered why there were
so many people in his house and what they were doing.
At last the clamour subsided as the twins, tossed into gratification and
only just not into sickness, were given the cat to play with, while
Daniel and Jess turned to the house’s need. Dan did not go out, as he
had first intended--his secret still tormented him, and he longed to
tell it to Jess. So he followed her about with brooms and pails and
dusters, submitting every now and then to being told he was in the way
and worse than the twins for getting under her feet.
Daniel had known Jess Harman all her life, which was a couple of years
shorter than his. He and the two Harmans had gone to school together and
had shared many secrets about frogs and toffee and the private life of
Jess and Maudie’s joint doll. Daniel had been jeered at by the other
boys and his elder brother Len for liking to play with girls, but though
in time he had realized his own ignominy and withdrawn to more manly
spheres, he had always been fond of the sisters, and on their leaving
school the friendship had been resumed with the greater
self-consciousness of adolescence. Dan had actually fancied himself in
love with Maudie for a couple of months--that was just after she had
become barmaid at the Crown and wore her hair in two great half-moons
each side of her face and was considered rather a smasher by the local
youth. He had never fancied himself in love with Jess, whose career had
been a lowlier one in pantries and sculleries; but to-day he certainly
did experience an overwhelming desire to tell her about Belle Shackford.
“Jess,” he asked, “have you ever been in love?”
“Have you been following me round the house on purpose to ask me that?”
“Yes--oh, Jess, I’m in love myself.”
She turned round and faced him, dust-pan in hand.
“You! Daniel Sheather! Who with?”
“Belle Shackford,” he said hoarsely.
“Well!”
Jess threw her hands in the air, unheeding of the avalanche that
descended from the dust-pan. “Well!”
“Well, why not?”
He was angry now. He had told his secret and wished he hadn’t.
“Well, my boy--she’s been engaged to Ernley Munk for two years--and
anyhow she ain’t the girl for you.”
“How d’you mean?”
“She ain’t your sort. She’s fast. You want something quieter.”
“She’s quiet enough for me.”
He thought of her for a moment as the pigeon in his breast.
“She’s--oh, I don’t want to miscall her, Danny, for I reckon she’s had
her troubles; but you know she’s fast--you know the things that have
been said about her as well as I do.”
“I don’t care.”
“But you don’t believe they ain’t true?”
“I don’t care if they’re true or not.”
“Then there’s some hope for you. If you’d said to me that Belle was just
like the female in ‘be thou hard as ice and chaste as snow thou shalt
not escape camomile,’ then I’d think you were just a poor loon that had
to be protected; but if you’re going into things with your eyes
open----”
“I am.”
“And how far have you gone?”
“No way at all.”
Since she was being so unsympathetic he would not tell her about the
kiss.
“Then don’t go any further.”
“I’ve gone too far to turn back.”
“You say you’ve gone no way at all and yet you’ve gone too far to turn
back. You are a loon, after all, Daniel.”
“There’s no good talking to you about it,” he said sulkily. “I’m sorry I
told you.”
She melted at once.
“Oh, don’t say that, Dan. I didn’t mean to be short with you--but I was
sorry to think of you.... Well, never mind. I wish you happy, I’m sure,
though I don’t expect it.”
“Why not?”
“Because--well, I’ve told you before, and you didn’t like it, so there’s
no sense telling you again. Besides, most likely, if she’s not the sort
of girl for you, she’ll see it herself and say ‘no.’ And don’t think I
shan’t be sorry for you, though I say it’ll be better if she does. I’ve
nothing against her myself, but I shouldn’t be acting friendly if I
didn’t tell you solemn that she’s not the girl for you.”
“Then who is she the girl for?”
“Oh, a more dashing sort of chap--the kind that’ll take her riding in
the side-car of his motor-bike and give her tea at an hotel in
Eastbourne, and ull dance with her sometimes, and buy her garters--a
chap like Ernley Munk. All the Shackford girls are like that--fond of
pleasure--‘She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,’ the
Bible says.”
“Now don’t start preaching.”
“I ain’t. But there’s no harm in you knowing what the Bible says about
Belle Shackford.”
“And about you too. You go to the pictures every time you get a chance.”
“Which is about once a year. Howsumever, I don’t say I shouldn’t go
oftener if I could. Now, Daniel, you and me had better stop quarrelling,
and go down and see if those kids haven’t baked theirselves in the oven
or cut theirselves open with the kitchen knives or otherways lost me my
place.”