1
THE winter dragged on into spring, a late spring, but wonderfully
rewarding when it came. Everything connected with the earth seemed to
burst out into fulfilment all in a night; there was a feeling of
exuberance and intense colour everywhere, which reflected itself in
people's spirits, making them jolly. The milkman whistled loudly and
clanked his cans for the sheer joy of making a noise. They had a servant
again at Leaside, so that Joan no longer exchanged the time of day with
him at the back door, but she stood at the dining-room window and
watched him swinging down the street, pushing his little chariot in
front of him; a red-haired and rosy man, very well contented with life.
"He's contented and I'm miserable," she thought. "Perhaps I should be
happier if I were a milkman, and had nothing to long for because there
was nothing in me to long with."
2
Far away, in London, Elizabeth strode through Kensington Gardens on her
way to work; her head was a little bent, her nostrils dilated, sniffing
the air. A chorus of birds hailed her with apparent delight. She noticed
several thrushes and at least one blackbird among them. The Albert
Memorial came into sight, it glowed like flame in the sun; a pompous and
a foolish thing made beautiful.
"I suppose it's spring in Seabourne too," she was thinking, and then: "I
wonder if Joan is very unhappy."
She quickened her steps. "Go on, go on, go on!" sang the spring
insistently, and then: "Go back, go back, go back! There is something
sweeter than ambition." Elizabeth trembled but went on.
To Joan the very glory of it all was an added heart-break. Grief is
never so unendurable in suitable company, it finds quite a deal of
consolation in the sorrow of others; it feels understood and at home.
But on this spring morning in Seabourne Joan's grief found no one to
welcome it. Even the servant at Leaside was shouting hymns as she laid
the breakfast; she belonged to the Salvation Army and every now and then
would pause to clap her hands in rhythm to the jaunty tune.
"_My sins they were as scarlet!
They are now as white as snow!_"
She carolled, and clapped triumphantly. Joan could hear her from her
bedroom upstairs.
Mrs. Ogden heard her too. "Ethel!" she called irritably; "not so much
noise, please." She closed her door sharply and kneeling down in front
of a newly acquired picture of The Holy Family, began to read a long
Matinal Devotion--for Mrs. Ogden was becoming religious. The presence of
spring in her room coloured her prayers, giving them an impish vitality.
She entreated God with a new note of sincerity and conviction to cast
all evil spirits into Hell and keep them there for ever and ever. She
made an elaborate private confession, striking her breast considerably
more often than the prescribed number of times. "Through my fault,
through my fault----" she murmured ecstatically.
3
An amazingly High Church clergyman had been appointed to a living two
miles away, and something in the incense and candles he affected had
stirred a new emotional excitement in Mrs. Ogden. Her bedside table was
strewn with little purple and white booklets: "Steps towards Eternal
Life," "Guide to Holy Mass," "The Real Catholic Church." They found
their way downstairs at times, and got themselves mixed up with Joan's
medical literature.
There appeared to be countless services at "Holy Martyrs," all of which
began at inconvenient hours, for Mrs. Ogden was for ever having the
times of the meals altered so that she might attend. It was wonderful
how she found the strength for these excursions. Two miles there and two
back and early service every Sunday morning, for she had become a
regular Communicant now, and wet or fine went forth fasting.
Joan understood that the new "priest," as Mrs. Ogden insisted that he
should be called, was ascetic, celibate and delicate. His name was
Cuthbert Jackson, and he was known to his flock as "Father Cuthbert."
It was not at all unusual for Mrs. Ogden to feel faint on her return
from Mass--the congregation called it Mass to annoy the bishop--and once
she had actually fainted in the church. Joan had been with her on that
occasion and had helped to carry her mother into the vestry; it had been
very embarrassing. When, after a severe application of smelling salts,
Mrs. Ogden had opened her eyes, there had been much sympathy expressed,
and she had insisted on leaving the church via the nave, clinging to her
daughter's arm.
She remonstrated with her mother about these early services, but to no
effect.
"Oh, Joan! If only you could find Him too!"
"Who?" Joan inquired flippantly; "Father Cuthbert?"
"No, my darling. I didn't mean Father Cuthbert--but then you don't
understand!"
Joan was silent, she felt that she was getting hard. It worried her at
times, but something in the smug contentment of her mother's new-found
faith irritated her beyond endurance. Mrs. Ogden had become so familiar
with the Almighty; so soppily sentimental over her Redeemer. Joan could
not feel Christianity like this or recognize Christ in this guise. She
suspected that Mrs. Ogden put Him only a very little above Father
Cuthbert: Father Cuthbert to whom she went every few days to confess the
sins that she might have committed but had not. Joan had formed her own
picture of Christ, and in it He did not appear as the Redeemer
especially reserved for elderly women and anæmic parsons, but as a
Being immensely vast and fierce and tender. Hers was a militant,
intellectual Christ; the Leader of great armies, the Ruler over the
nations of the earth, the Companion of wise men and kings, the Friend of
little children and simple people. She felt ashamed and indignant for
Him whenever her mother touched on religion, she was so terrifyingly
patronizing.
Mrs. Ogden had quickly become the slave of small, pious practices. She
went so far as to keep a notebook lest she should forget any of them.
They affected the household adversely, they made a lot more work for
other people to do. No meat was permitted on Fridays; in fact, they had
very little to eat of any kind. It was all absurd and tiresome and
pathetic, and obviously bad for the health. The only result of it, so
far as Joan could see, was that Mrs. Ogden evinced even less interest
than before in domestic concerns, only descending from her vantage
ground to find fault. She seemed to be living in another world, while
still keeping a watchful eye on her daughter.
She found an excellent new grievance in the fact that Joan resisted all
efforts to make her attend church regularly; there was no longer
Elizabeth to worry about, so she worried about Joan's soul. Joan was
patiently stubborn, she refused to confess to Father Cuthbert or to
interest herself in any way in his numerous activities. He came to tea
at Mrs. Ogden's request and tried his best, poor man, to wear down what
he felt to be Joan's prejudice against him. But he was melodramatic
looking and doubtfully clean, and wore a large amethyst cross on his
emaciated stomach, and Joan remained unimpressed.
"If you want to be a Catholic," she told her mother afterwards, "why not
be a real one and be done with it."
"I am a real one," said Mrs. Ogden.
"Oh no, Mother, you're not, you're only pretending to be. You take the
plums out of other people's religion and disregard the rest. I think
it's rather mean."
"If you mean the Pope!----" began Mrs. Ogden indignantly.
"Oh, I mean the whole thing; anyhow, it wouldn't suit me."
Mrs. Ogden was offended. "I must ask you not to speak disrespectfully of
my religion," she said. "I don't like it."
"Then don't keep on pushing it down my throat."
They started bickering again. Bickering, always bickering; Joan knew
that it was intolerable, undignified, that she ought to control herself,
but the power of self-control was weakening in her. She was sorry for
her mother, for the past that was so largely responsible for Mrs.
Ogden's present, but the fact that she felt sorry only irritated her the
more. She told herself that if this new religious zeal had been
productive of peace she could have been tolerant, but it was not; on the
contrary the domestic chaos grew. If Mrs. Ogden had tried her servants
before, she did so now ten times more; she nagged with new-found
spiritual vigour; it was becoming increasingly difficult to please her.
"It's them meal times, miss," blubbered the latest acquisition to Joan,
one morning. "It's the chopping and the changing that's so wearying; I
can't stand it, no I can't, I feel quite worn out."
"Don't say you want to leave, Ethel?" Joan implored with a note of
despair in her voice.
"But I do! She's never satisfied, miss; she's at me all the time."
"She's at me, too," thought Joan, "and yet I don't seem able to give a
month's notice."
4
It was summer again. How monotonously the seasons came round; it was
always spring, summer, autumn, or winter; it could never be anything
else, that made a year. How many years made a lifetime?
Joan began playing tennis again; one always played tennis every summer
at Seabourne, but now she disliked the game. Since Milly's affair with
Mr. Thompson the tennis club and its members had become intolerable to
her. The members found her dull and probably disliked her; she was so
sure of this that she grew self-conscious and abashed in their midst.
She wondered sometimes if that was why she found fault with them,
because they made her feel shy. She had never made friends, she had been
too much wrapped up in Elizabeth. No one was interested in her, no one
wanted her. Richard wrote angry letters; she never answered them, but he
went on writing just the same. He seemed to take a pleasure in bullying
her.
"I shan't come home this summer," he wrote. "I can't see you withering
on your stalk. You can marry me if you like; why not, since nothing
better offers? But what's the good of talking to you? It's hopeless! I
don't know why I waste time in writing; I suppose it's because I'm in
love with you. You've disappointed me horribly; I could have stood aside
for your work, but you don't want to work, and you make your duty to
your mother the excuse. Oh, Joan! I did think you were made of better
stuff. I thought you were a real person and not just a bit of flabby
toast like the rest of the things at Seabourne."
She had said that she cared less than nothing for his approval or
disapproval, but she found she did care after all; not because she loved
Richard, but because it was being brought home to her that she, like the
rest of mankind, needed approbation. No one approved of her, not even
the mother for whose sake she was sacrificing herself. Self-sacrifice
was unpopular, it seemed, or was it in some way her own fault? She must
be different from other people, a kind of unprepossessing freak. She sat
brooding over this at the school-room table, with Richard's last epistle
crushed in her hand. Her eyes were bent unseeing on the ink-stained
mahogany, but something, perhaps it was a faint sound, made her look up.
Elizabeth was standing in the doorway gazing at her.
Joan sprang forward with a cry.
"Hallo, Joan," said Elizabeth calmly, and sat down in the arm-chair.
Joan's voice failed her. She stood and stared, afraid to believe her
eyes.
Elizabeth waited; then: "Well?" she queried.
Joan found her voice. "You've come back for the holidays? Thank you for
coming to see me."
Elizabeth said: "There's no need to thank me; I came because I wanted
to; don't be ridiculous, Joan!"
"But I thought--I understood that you'd had enough of me. I thought my
failing you had made you hate me."
"No, I don't hate you, or I shouldn't be here."
"Then I don't understand," said Joan desperately. "Oh! I _don't_
understand!"
Elizabeth said: "No, I know you don't. I don't understand myself, but
here I am."
They were silent for a while, eyeing each other like duellists waiting
for an opening. Elizabeth leant back in the rickety chair, her
enigmatical eyes on the girl's agitated face. She was smiling a little.
"What have you come for?" said Joan, flushing with sudden anger. "If you
don't mean to stay, why have you come back to Seabourne? Perhaps you've
come to jeer at me. Even Richard hasn't done that!"
Elizabeth stretched her long legs and made as if to stifle a yawn. "I've
given up my job," she said.
"You've given up your job in London?"
"Yes."
"But why?"
"Because of you."
"Because of me? You've thrown over your post because of me?"
"Yes; it's queer, isn't it? But I've come back to wait with you a little
while longer."