Chapter 8

Anne called to them. "I say, darlings, would you mind awfully going somewhere else? Colin can't sleep with you prowling about there."

Adeline's voice came up to them with a little laughing quiver.

"All right, ducky; we're going in."

v

It was the end of October; John Severn had gone back to London. He had taken a house in Montpelier Square and was furnishing it.

One morning Adeline came down smiling, more self-conscious than ever.

"Anne," she said, "do you think you could look after Colin if I went up to Evelyn's for a week or two?"

Evelyn was Adeline's sister. She lived in London.

"Of course I can."

"You aren't afraid of being alone with him?"

"Afraid? Of Col-Col? What do you take me for?"

"Well--" Adeline meditated. "It isn't as if Mrs. Benning wasn't here."

Mrs. Benning was the housekeeper.

"That'll make it all right and proper. The fact is, I must have a rest and change before the winter. I hardly ever get away, as you know. And Evelyn would like to have me. I think I must go."

"Of course you must go," Anne said.

And Adeline went.

At the end of the first week she wrote:

12 Eaton Square. November 3d, 1915.

Darling Anne,--Will you be very much surprised to hear that your father and I are going to be married? You mayn't know it, but he has loved me all his life. We _were_ to have married once (you knew _that_), and I jilted him. But he has never changed. He has been so faithful and forgiving, and has waited for me so patiently--twenty-seven years, Anne--that I hadn't the heart to refuse him. I feel that I must make up to him for all the pain I've given him.

We want you to come up for the wedding on the 10th. It will be very quiet. No bridesmaids. No party. We think it best not to have it at Wyck, on Colin's account. So I shall just be married from Evelyn's house.

Give us your blessing, there's a dear.

Your loving

Adeline Fielding.

Anne's eyes filled with tears. At last she saw Adeline Fielding completely, as she was, without any fascination. She thought: "She's marrying to get away from Colin. She's left him to me to look after. How could she leave him? How could she?"

Anne didn't go up for the wedding. She told Adeline it wasn't much use asking her when she knew that Colin couldn't be left.

"Or, if you like, that _I_ can't leave him."

Her father wrote back:

Your Aunt Adeline thinks you reproach her for leaving Colin. I told her you were too intelligent to do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's the best thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of looking after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be looked after herself, and you ought to be grateful to me for relieving you of the job.

But I don't like your being alone down there with Colin. If he isn't better we must send him to a nursing home.

Are you wondering whether we're going to be happy?

We shall be so long as I let her have her own way; which is what I mean to do.

Your very affectionate father,

JOHN SEVERN.

And Anne answered:

DEAREST DADDY,--I shouldn't dream of reproaching Aunt Adeline any more than I should reproach a pussycat for catching birds.

Look after her as much as you please--_I_ shall look after Colin. Whether you like it or not, darling, you can't stop me. And I won't let Colin go to a nursing home. It would be the worst possible place for him. Ask Eliot. Besides, he _is_ better.

I'm ever so glad you're going to be happy.

Your loving

ANNE.

VIII

ANNE AND COLIN

i

Autumn had passed. Colin's couch was drawn up before the fire in the drawing-room. Anne sat with him there.

He was better. He could listen for half an hour at a time when Anne read to him--poems, short stories, things that were ended before Colin tired of them. He ate and drank hungrily and his body began to get back its strength.

At noon, when the winter sun shone, he walked, first up and down the terrace, then round and round the garden, then to the beech trees at the top of the field, and then down the hill to the Manor Farm. On mild days she drove him about the country in the dog-cart. She had tried motoring but had had to give it up because Colin was frightened at the hooting, grinding and jarring of the car.

As winter went on Anne found that Colin was no worse in cold or wet weather. He couldn't stand the noise and rush of the wind, but his strange malady took no count of rain or snow. He shivered in the clear, still frost, but it braced him all the same. Driving or strolling, she kept him half the day in the open air.

She saw that he liked best the places they had gone to when they were children--the Manor Farm fields, High Slaughter, and Hayes Mill. They were always going to the places where they had done things together. When Colin talked sanely he was back in those times. He was safe there. There, if anywhere, he could find his real self and be well.

She had the feeling that Colin's future lay somewhere through his past. If only she could get him back there, so that he could be what he had been. There must be some way of joining up that time to this, if only she could find a bridge, a link. She didn't know that she was the way, she was the link binding his past to his present, bound up with his youth, his happiness, his innocence, with the years before Queenie and the War.

She didn't know what Queenie had done to him. She didn't know that the war had only finished what Queenie had begun. That was Colin's secret, the hidden source of his fear.

But he was safe with Anne because they were not in love with each other. She left his senses at rest, and her affection never called for any emotional response. She took him away from his fear; she kept him back in his childhood, in his boyhood, in the years before Queenie, with a continual, "Do you remember?"

"Do you remember the walk to High Slaughter?"

"Do you remember the booby-trap we set for poor Pinkney?"

That was dangerous, for poor Pinkney was at the War.

"Do you remember Benjy?"

"Yes, rather."

But Benjy was dangerous, too; for Jerrold had given him to her. She could feel Colin shying.

"He had a butterfly smut," he said. "Hadn't he? ...Do you remember how I used to come and see you at Cheltenham?"

"And Grannie and Aunt Emily, and how you used to play on their piano. And how Grannie jumped when you came down crash on those chords in the Waldstein."

"Do you mean the _presto?_"

"Yes. The last movement."

"No wonder she jumped. I should jump now." He turned his mournful face to her. "Anne--I shall never be able to play again."

There was danger everywhere. In the end all ways led back to Colin's malady.

"Oh yes, you wall when you're quite strong."

"I shall never be stronger."

"You will. You're stronger already."

She knew he was stronger. He could sleep three hours on end now and he had left off screaming.

And still the doors were left open between their rooms at night. He was still afraid to sleep alone; he liked to know that she was there, close to him.

Instead of the dreams, instead of the sudden rushing, crashing horror, he was haunted by a nameless dread. Dread of something he didn't know, something that waited for him, something he couldn't face. Something that hung over him at night, that was there with him in the morning, that came between him and the light of the sun.

Anne kept it away. Anne came between it and him. He was unhappy and frightened when Anne was not there.

It was always, "You're _not_ going, Anne?"

"Yes. But I'm coming back."

"How soon?"

And she would say, "An hour;" or, "Half an hour," or, "Ten minutes."

"Don't be longer."

"No."

And then: "I don't know how it is, Anne. But everything seems all right when you're there, and all wrong when you're not."

ii

The Manor Farm house stands in the hamlet of Upper Speed. It has the grey church and churchyard beside it and looks across the deep road towards Sutton's farm.

The beautiful Jacobean house, the church and church-yard, Sutton's farm and the rectory, the four cottages and the Mill, the river and its bridge, lie close together in the small flat of the valley. Green pastures slope up the hill behind them to the north; pink-brown arable lands, ploughed and harrowed, are flung off to either side, east and west.

Northwards the valley is a slender slip of green bordering the slender river. Southwards, below the bridge, the water meadows widen out past Sutton's farm. From the front windows of the Manor Farm house you see them, green between the brown trunks of the elms on the road bank. From the back you look out across orchard and pasture to the black, still water and yellow osier beds above the Mill. Beyond the water a double line of beeches, bare delicate branches, rounded head after rounded head, climbs a hillock in a steep curve, to part and meet again in a thick ring at the top.

The house front stretches along a sloping grass plot, the immense porch built out like a wing with one ball-topped gable above it, a smaller gable in the roof behind. On either side two rows of wide black windows, heavy browed, with thick stone mullions.

Barker, Jerrold Fielding's agent, used to live there; but before the spring of nineteen sixteen Barker had joined up, Wyck Manor had been turned into a home for convalescent soldiers, and Anne was living with Colin at the Manor Farm.

Half of her Ilford land had been taken by the government; and she had let the rest together with the house and orchard. Instead of her own estate she had the Manor to look after now. It had been impossible in war-time to fill Barker's place, and Anne had become Jerrold's agent. She had begun with a vague promise to give a look round now and then; but when the spring came she found herself doing Barker's work, keeping the farm accounts, ordering fertilizers, calculating so many hundredweights of superphosphate of lime, or sulphate of ammonia, or muriate of potash to the acre; riding about on Barker's horse, looking after the ploughing; plodding through the furrows of the hill slopes to see how the new drillers were working; going the round of the sheep-pens to keep count of the sick ewes and lambs; carrying the motherless lambs in her arms from the fold to the warm kitchen.

She went through February rain and snow, through March wind and sleet, and through the mists of the low meadows; her feet were loaded with earth from the ploughed fields; her nostrils filled with the cold, rich smell of the wet earth; the rank, sharp smell of swedes, the dry, pungent smell of straw and hay; the thick, oily, woolly smell of the folds, the warm, half-sweet, half sour smell of the cattle sheds, of champed fodder, of milky cow's breath; the smell of hot litter and dung.

At five and twenty she had reached the last clear decision of her beauty. Dressed in riding coat and breeches, her body showed more slender and more robust than ever. Rain, sun and wind were cosmetics to her firm, smooth skin. Her eyes were bright dark, washed with the clean air.

On her Essex farm and afterwards at the War she had learned how to handle men. Sulky Curtis, who grumbled under Barker's rule, surrendered to Anne without a scowl. When Anne came riding over the Seven Acre field, lazy Ballinger pulled himself together and ploughed through the two last furrows that he would have left for next day in Barker's time. Even for Ballinger and Curtis she had smiles that atoned for her little air of imperious command.

And Colin followed her about the farmyard and up the fields till he tired and turned back. She would see him standing by the gate she had passed through, looking after her with the mournful look he used to have when he was a little boy and they left him behind.

He would stand looking till Anne's figure, black on her black horse, stood up against the skyline from the curve of the round-topped hill. It dipped; it dipped and disappeared and Colin would go slowly home.

At the first sound of her horse's hoofs in the yard he came out to meet her.

One day he said to her, "Jerrold'll be jolly pleased with what you've done when he comes home."

And then, "If he ever can be pleased with anything again."

It was the first time he had said Jerrold's name.

"That's what's been bothering me," he went on. "I can't think how Jerrold's going to get over it. You remember what he was like when Father died?"

"Yes." She remembered.

"Well--what's the War going to do to him? Look what it's done to me. He minds things so much more than I do."

"It doesn't take everybody the same way, Colin."

"I don't suppose Jerrold'll get shell-shock. But he might get something worse. Something that'll hurt him more. He must mind so awfully."

"You may be sure he won't mind anything that could happen to himself."

"Of course he won't. But the things that'll happen to other people. Seeing the other chaps knocked about and killed."

"He minds most the things that happen to the people he cares about. To you and Eliot. They're the sort of things he can't face. He'd pretend they couldn't happen. But the war's so big that he can't say it isn't happening; he's got to stand up to it. And the things you stand up to don't hurt you. I feel certain he'll come through all right."

That was the turning point in Colin's malady. She thought: "If he can talk about Jerrold he's getting well."

The next day a letter came to her from Jerrold. He wrote: "I wish to goodness I could get leave. I don't want it _all_ the time. I'm quite prepared to stick this beastly job for any reasonable period; but a whole year without leave, it's a bit thick..."

"About Colin. Didn't I tell you he'd be all right? And it's all _you_, Anne. You've made him; you needn't pretend you haven't. I want most awfully to see you again. There are all sorts of things I'd like to say to you, but I can't write 'em."

She thought: "He's got over it at last, then. He won't be afraid of me any more."

Somehow, since the war she had felt that Jerrold would come back to her. It was as if always, deep down and in secret, she had known that he belonged to her and that she belonged to him as no other person could; that whatever happened and however long a time he kept away from her he would come back at some time, in some way. She couldn't distinguish between Jerrold and her sense of Jerrold; and as nothing could separate her from the sense of him, nothing could separate her from Jerrold himself. He had part in the profound and secret life of her blood and nerves and brain.

IX

JERROLD

i

At last, in March, nineteen-sixteen, Jerrold had got leave.

Anne was right; Jerrold had come through because he had had to stand up to the War and face it. He couldn't turn away. It was too stupendous a fact to be ignored or denied or in any way escaped from. And as he had to "take" it, he took it laughing. Once in the thick of it, Jerrold was sustained by his cheerful obstinacy, his inability to see the things he didn't want to see. He admitted that there was a war, the most appalling war, if you liked, that had ever been; but he refused, all the time, to believe that the Allies would lose it; he refused from moment to moment to believe that they could be beaten in any single action; he denied the possibility of disaster to his own men. Disaster to himself--possibly; probably, in theory; but not in practice. Not when he turned back in the rain of the enemy's fire to find his captain who had dropped wounded among the dead, when he swung him over his shoulder and staggered to the nearest stretcher. He knew he would get through. It was inconceivable to Jerrold that he should not get through. Even in his fifth engagement, when his men broke and gave back in front of the German parapet, and he advanced alone, shouting to them to come on, it was inconceivable that they should not come on. And when they saw him, running forward by himself, they gathered again and ran after him and the trench was taken in a mad rush.

Jerrold got his captaincy and two weeks' leave together. He had meant to spend three days in London with his mother, three days in Yorkshire with the Durhams, and the rest of his time at Upper Speed with Anne and Colin. He was not quite sure whether he wanted to go to the Durhams. More than anything he wanted to see Anne again.

His last unbearable memory of her was wiped out by five years of India and a year of war. He remembered the child Anne who played with him, the girl Anne who went about with him, and the girl woman he had found in her room at dawn. He tried to join on to her the image of the Anne that Eliot wrote to him about, who had gone out to the war and come back from it to look after Colin. He was in love with this image of her and ready to be in love again with the real Anne. He would go back now and find her and make her care for him.

There had been a time, after his father's death, when he had tried to make himself think that Anne had never cared for him, because he didn't want to think she cared. Now that he did want it he wasn't sure.

Not so sure as he was about little Maisie Durham. He knew Maisie cared. That was why she had gone out to India. It was also why she had been sent back again. He was afraid it might be why the Durhams had asked him to stay with them as soon as he had leave. If that was so, he wasn't sure whether he ought to stay with them, seeing that he didn't care for Maisie. But since they had asked him, well, he could only suppose that the Durhams knew what they were about. Perhaps Maisie had got over it. The little thing had lots of sense.

It hadn't been his fault in the beginning, Maisie's caring. Afterwards, perhaps, in India, when he had let himself see more of her than he would have done if he had known she cared; but that, again, was hardly his fault since he didn't know. You don't see these things unless you're on the lookout for them, and you're not on the lookout unless you're a conceited ass. Then when he did see it, when he couldn't help seeing, after other people had seen and made him see, it had been too late.

But this was five years ago, and of course Maisie had got over it. There would be somebody else now. Perhaps he would go down to Yorkshire. Perhaps he wouldn't.

At this point Jerrold realised that it depended on Anne.

But before he saw Anne he would have to see his mother. And before he saw his mother his mother had seen Anne and Colin.

ii

And while Anne in Gloucestershire was answering Jerrold's letter, Jerrold sat in the drawing-room of the house in Montpelier Square and talked to his mother. They talked about Colin and Anne.

"What's Colin's wife doing?" he said.

"Queenie? She's driving a field ambulance car in Belgium."

"Why isn't she looking after Colin?"

"That isn't in Queenie's line. Besides--"

"Besides what?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I don't suppose she'll live with Colin after--"

"After _what_?"

"Well, after Colin's living with Anne."

Jerrold stiffened. He felt the blood rushing to his heart, betraying him. His face was God only knew what awful colour.

"You don't mean to say they--"

"I don't mean to say I blame them, poor darlings. What were they to do?"

"But" (he almost stammered it) "you don't know--you can't know--it doesn't follow."

"Well, of course, my dear, they haven't _told_ me. You don't shout these things from the house-tops. But what is one to think? There they are; there they've been for the last five months, living together at the Farm, absolutely alone. Anne won't leave him. She won't have anybody there. If you tell her it's not proper she laughs in your face. And Colin swears he won't go back to Queenie. What _is_ one to think?"

Jerrold covered his face with his hands. He didn't know.

His mother went on in a voice of perfect sweetness. "Don't imagine I think a bit the worse of Anne. She's been simply splendid. I never saw anything like her devotion. She's brought Colin round out of the most appalling state. We've no business to complain of a situation we're all benefitting by. Some people can do these things and you forgive them. Whatever Anne does or doesn't do she'll always be a perfect darling. As for Queenie, I don't consider her for a minute. She's been simply asking for it."

He wondered whether it were really true. It didn't follow that Anne and Colin were lovers because his mother said so; even supposing that she really thought it.

"You don't go telling everybody, I hope?" he said.

"My dear Jerrold, what do you think I'm made of? I haven't even told Anne's father. I've only told you because I thought you ought to know."

"I see; you want to put me off Anne?"

"I don't _want_ to. But it would, wouldn't it?"

"Oh Lord, yes, if it was true. Perhaps it isn't."

"Jerry dear, it may be awfully immoral of me, but for Colin's sake I can't help hoping that it is. I did so want Anne to marry Colin--really he's only right when he's with her--and if Queenie divorces him I suppose she will."

"But, mother, you _are_ going ahead. You may be quite wrong."

"I may. You can only suppose--"

"How on earth am I to know? I can't ask them."

"No, you can't ask them."

Of course he couldn't. He couldn't go to Colin and say, "Are you Anne's lover?" He couldn't go to Anne and say, "Are you Colin's mistress?"

"If they wanted us to know," said Adeline, "they'd have told us. There you are."

"Supposing it isn't true, do you imagine he cares for her?"

"Yes, Jerrold. I'm quite, quite sure of that. I was down there last week and saw them. He can't bear her out of his sight one minute. He couldn't not care."

"And Anne?"

"Oh, well, Anne isn't going to give herself away. But I'm certain... Would she stick down there, with everybody watching them and thinking things and talking, if she didn't care so much that nothing matters?"

"But would she--would she--"

The best of his mother was that in these matters her mind jumped to meet yours halfway. You hadn't got to put things into words.

"My dear, if you think she wouldn't, supposing she cared enough, you don't know Anne."

"I shall go down," he said, "and see her."

"If you do, for goodness' sake be careful. Even supposing there's nothing in it, you mustn't let Colin see you think there is. He'd feel then that he ought to leave her for fear of compromising her. And if he leaves her he'll be as bad as ever again. And _I_ can't manage him. Nobody can manage him but Anne. That's how they've tied our hands. We can't say anything."

"I see."

"After all, Jerrold, it's very simple. If they're innocent we must leave them in their innocence. And if they're not----"

"If they're not?"

"Well, we must leave them in _that_."

Jerrold laughed. But he was not in the least amused.

iii

He went down to Wyck the next day; he couldn't wait till the day after.

Not that he had the smallest hope of Anne now. Even if his mother's suspicion were unfounded, she had made it sufficiently clear to him that Anne was necessary to Colin; and, that being so, the chances were that Colin cared for her. In these matters his mother was not such a fool as to be utterly mistaken. On every account, therefore, he must be prepared to give Anne up. He couldn't take her away from Colin, and he wouldn't if he could. It was his own fault. What was done was done six years ago. He should have loved Anne then.