Through the wood rode Placidus on his white horse with its golden trappings, Placidus in his poppy-red jerkin and blue cloak with his dogs about him. Any danger that the brilliance of the wood might have dwarfed the splendor of Placidus was got over by making the man, the horse, and the dogs bigger than life-size in comparison with the wood.
And there was another striking contrast between the figures of the story and the background against which they moved. The flowers and all the little creatures up in the trees had a strange stillness. They weren’t going anywhere. They had reached their moment of completion and stopped there. But the dogs were stretched out in full chase; the horse, suddenly reined in from the gallop, was pawing the ground; Placidus, though for the moment still in awe and wonder, was taut as a bent bow; the whole group was vibrant with eagerness and urgency, a complete contrast both to the stillness of the wood and the stillness of the images upon the east wall.
It was a shock to turn from the jostling brilliance of the wood to the austere splendor of the east wall. The great immobile figure of the deer, white and shining, holding the crucifix aloft between its antlers, had behind it no flowery background, but the bare slope of a purple mountain. Though it was still day in the wood night was falling on the mountain; darkness veiled it, and far up beyond the topmost peak a few stars shone. But they gave little light. The stag glowed by virtue of the light that shone from the Figure on the cross, a radiance so bright that the actual outline of the Figure was lost in it. The stillness of those images was quite different in quality from the stillness of the wood. It was the stillness not of completion, but of depth. Looking at them was like looking over the edge of a boat down into a calm sea; one knew that far beyond the limit of one’s vision were unimaginable things.
And all this had been hidden for years beneath layers of dirty wallpaper. Their awe deepened the longer they worked, and their happiness too. The thought of this glory, waiting here for so long for rebirth, hidden but safe, was invigorating in these days of anxiety and fear. It was a prophecy, and as such they hugged it to them.
Everyone seemed to feel the same. Lucilla and Margaret and Hilary were constantly jolting over in the Ford to see how they were getting on, and gloat over a clump of primroses freshly disinterred, or a butterfly sunning itself upon a clump of pansies. Malony and Annie-Laurie, though they said little and visited the chapel seldom, looked at it when they did come with a queer sort of frustrated hunger, as though it were offering them something that they did not yet know how to take. The twins were perpetually underfoot and a terrible nuisance, and Jill, summoned to fetch them away, marveled afresh every time that Auntie Rose’s mother-in-law’s mother-in-law, who was suspected of having pasted up the first wallpaper, should not have realized that the dirty walls held this wealth beneath the dirt. George and Nadine put in no work upon the walls, and of all the household were the most detached in their attitude towards the frescoes: George because he and Malony had worked damned hard making and putting up the shelves, and he could not help feeling that in their usefulness and fitness for their purpose they had been just as good a thing as those queer, uncanny pictures, and Nadine because she was living now in a queer exhausted detached state, her chief emotion a quite unreasonable hatred of woods.
— 2 —
It was on the day when a telephone message had summoned Lucilla, Margaret, and Hilary to come and inspect the latest discovery, a green toad with a jewel in his head sitting on a mossy stone and laughing, that Hilary decided to call on Malony and Annie-Laurie in their new establishment. It was, he knew, their half day, but he hoped that the business of settling in would have kept them from going out. He had the feeling that Malony and Annie-Laurie, George and Nadine, were just at present loose ends at the Herb of Grace; they weren’t as yet getting properly woven into the pattern. John Adair and Ben, David and Sally, were, he felt, unconsciously working out a satisfactory relationship with each other as they worked at the walls, but the other four, not working at the walls, were not. He was too scared of Nadine to attempt any weaving in where she was concerned, even had he known certainly what was the matter with her, and he did not, though he was prepared to hazard a shrewd guess. George, he felt, would get automatically tucked in if she was. But Malony and Annie-Laurie did not scare him in the least. The likes of Malony he had known in and out and through and through during the First World War, and Annie-Laurie he had sized up in the first five minutes of their acquaintance as just a gallant girl in a bad mess. He was deeply attracted by gallantry, and a mess was a thing that he always snuffed from afar as an old war horse snuffs the scent of powder.
Having duly admired the jeweled and laughing toad he quietly absented himself from the company in the chapel and hobbled down the turret stairs to the kitchen. The two old dogs, Pooh-Bah and the Bastard, had accompanied the party from Damerosehay. Pooh-Bah remained with Lucilla, so that the consideration and loving care that always enveloped her should envelop him also, but the Bastard, although he was feeling his age today, wheezed down the stairs after Hilary. He felt purpose in Hilary’s movements, and he always liked to go with his family whenever they were doing anything important. He had an obscure feeling that if he didn’t they might make some mistake.
Jill was in the kitchen ironing, with the twins in a couple of large cardboard boxes under the table. Hilary smiled at her, with immense pleasure in the sight of her, for it was his opinion that she was as near to God as any woman of his acquaintance except Lucilla. She smiled back with simple friendliness, for she thought the Reverend Hilary was a dear old soul, though how he could be the son of Lady Eliot, so stout and homely-looking as he was, beat her.
“Ironing,” said Hilary, sniffing appreciatively. “Best smell in the world, barring fried sausages—prewar.”
“Yes, sir,” smiled Jill. “How’s your rheumatism today?”
“It’s lumbago,” said Hilary. “It switched over in the night. I like variety. It keeps one young.”
“Try salt, sir,” said Jill. “Kitchen salt warmed in the oven, folded in warm flannel and then applied to the afflicted part. My Auntie Rose always did that for my uncle. He was a great sufferer before the end.”
“Was he?” said Hilary, and seeing Jill disposed for conversation he propped himself up against the dresser and lit his pipe. Malony and Annie-Laurie could wait for five minutes. An ability to let things wait for five minutes was part of the general peacefulness of his state, and if it irritated his family it commended itself very highly to his gossip-loving country parishioners. “Poor chap. What was it at the end?”
“The doctor called it peritonitis,” said Jill.
“And what was it really?” asked Hilary, aware of the strong conviction of the country mind that it always knows better than the doctor.
“Blackberry tart. He would have it.”
“After Michaelmas?”
“Yes. After Michaelmas.”
Hilary shook his head sadly. The devil, as is well known, overlooks blackberries at Michaelmas. “A pity,” he said. “A nice chap. I met him once. I was sorry when he died.”
“It had to be,” said Jill philosophically.
“I hope your aunt is happy with her daughter-in-law?” asked Hilary.
“No, sir. She don’t get on with her like she thought she would. Edith, she’s more managing than what Auntie thought she was. And she’s a poor cook, too, and won’t be taught. And it just about gets Auntie down to see Sydney (that’s her son, Edith’s husband) not fed as he should be. And he takes Edith’s part, of course. And then Auntie thought she’d enjoy taking it easy after working so hard all her life, but she don’t.”
“Why doesn’t she come back here and take on the cooking?” inquired Hilary. “It’s far too much for Mrs. Eliot.”
Jill placed her iron carefully on the stand, and her beautiful gray-green eyes fixed themselves in astonished delight upon Hilary’s face. “Well, there now, sir! I never t
hought of it!”
Hilary suddenly fell into a panic. He had spoken on impulse. Would Nadine and Auntie Rose, as past and present mistresses of the Herb of Grace, get on?
“It’s not as though Auntie Rose had ever cared much about the place,” said Jill, following the drift of his thought. “She never did, apart from the kitchen. She would have, I expect, for everyone loves the Herb of Grace, but you see, sir, for the first twenty years of her married life her mother-in-law lived here with her, and that got her to feel somehow that her home was never rightly hers.”
“Allergic to in-laws,” murmured Hilary.
“Give her a free hand in the kitchen, and one of the big attics where she could put her suite and the brass bedstead, and she’d be happy as a queen, even come to love the place as much as the rest of us. Mrs. Eliot would give her a free hand in the kitchen. Mrs. Eliot is like that, sir. She never interferes.”
And Jill’s eyes left Hilary’s face and glanced lovingly downwards. Nadine left the twins as completely in her care as though they were her own. Following Jill’s glance Hilary became aware for the first time of the completely silent immobile occupants of the cardboard boxes.
“What are they?” he asked with interest.
“I’m not quite sure, sir,” said Jill. “Whatever it is, it’s nice and quiet so far.”
The grandfather clock struck three, there was a piercing shriek, and the two cardboard boxes ricocheted from beneath the table and sped around the room, roaring, whistling, and screaming as they went. The cat Smith, asleep on the hearth, leaped to the window seat for safety, and Mary, also present, fled beneath the dresser. The Bastard, lying near the open door to the porch, gave a half turn over like a porpoise, and rolled through it into safety.
“The three o’clock express from Paddington,” hazarded Hilary. He lingered a moment or two, astonished beyond measure at the way the twins, merely by the oscillation of their small bodies within them, kept the cardboard boxes in motion. Then, further conversation being impossible, he smiled at Jill and went out into the stable yard.
— 3 —
Grand old place, he thought, pausing to look about him. It was a fine still day, with the sky faintly veiled in mist so that the suffused sunlight fell silverly. The cushions of moss were emerald between the cobbles, and the garnet-colored walls and the steep, crinkled, amber roofs of the outbuildings glowed with warmth. Beyond the silver trunks of the old apple trees there was a haze of shadow behind the bronze and gold of a few late chrysanthemums. There was a bonfire burning somewhere, its pungent scent mixing with the smell of the wet chrysanthemums, the scent of ironing from the kitchen, and the smell of a baking cake drifting down from the open door up there, the door that opened on the Malonys’ balcony.
Hilary crossed the stable yard with as much alacrity as his lumbago permitted, the Bastard lumbering after him. He had lunched early and inadequately upon powdered egg, tough bacon, and cheese that in prewar days would have been relegated to the mousetrap. He had a most faithful and devoted housekeeper, but she was too old to be able to think of anything to eat except powdered egg and bacon and cheese, once the microscopic weekly joint was finished, and then just powdered egg and cheese when the bacon was finished, and then, when the cheese was finished, just powdered egg. The vicarage cakes were bought from the baker and fell into chalk while you looked at them. Hilary laid a hand upon the beautiful wrought-iron handrail and pulled himself up the old worn stone steps with lips compressed by pain, and nostrils twitching with the titillation of the aroma that floated down to him from above. The Bastard still lumbered slowly after him. Halfway up he paused to get his breath, prayed God to forgive him for the greediness that he was not at all sure was not growing upon him with age, prayed for guidance in the task that lay before him, prayed that he might get up the rest of these darned steps without disaster, mopped his face, and went on again with one hand on the rail and the other unconsciously clutching his back. The Bastard, faint but persevering, followed.
He was in poor shape by the time he got to the open front door of the Malony flat and found himself confronting a coldly furious Annie-Laurie. Visitors at her winter quarters were as unwelcome as they had been on the houseboat. Entrenched in her home, wherever it might be, she was like a lion in its den. She must feel safe there or she just could not bear it.
Hilary understood this after a glance at her face. Naturally, that was how she would feel, and he had been an old fool, he told himself, not to have thought of that before.
“Forgive me, Annie-Laurie,” he panted. “I thought I’d like to come and pay a call on you and Malony, and it never occurred to me that I ought to have waited for an invitation.” He paused to get his breath again. “The fact of the matter is, you know, that when you’ve been vicar of the same country parish for half a lifetime, as I have, your parishioners get used to you blundering in and out uninvited, like an old dog, and they don’t let it put them out at all.” He paused again, looking at her comically and apologetically.
“And I won’t let it put me out either,” said Annie-Laurie, with sudden generosity. Really, he did look like an old dog, panting there upon her doorstep; they were a couple, he and the old gray woolly creature wheezing at his heels. And they were both in a bad way after the climb. Ridiculous of them both to have attempted it, but since they had, there was nothing she could do except let them in to sit down a bit before they climbed down again. “Come in, both of you,” she said, standing away from the door.
“Both?” inquired Hilary, and his own shortness of breath having now subsided somewhat he became aware of the noise like a steam engine that the Bastard was making behind him. “Poor old Bastard! I’d no idea he’d come too. Now what induced him to come up all this way after me? He’s no idea what he can do or can’t do at his age. Must be deeply attached to you, Annie-Laurie.”
“I’ll give him a drink of water,” said Annie-Laurie. “Yes, he likes me. I love dogs, and they know it. This one’s a dear old mix-up, isn’t he? Mostly Welsh sheep dog, I think.”
Hilary thought the wish must be father to the thought. He’d seen no signs of Welsh ancestry in the Bastard himself. He lowered himself thankfully into the nearest chair and watched her as she filled a blue bowl with water for the Bastard. When he had finished she spread a little red rug before the fire and settled him there, sitting on her heels beside him and rubbing him gently behind the ears. He let out a gusty sigh of contentment and dropped his head against her knee. Hilary perceived that the Bastard must have known what he was doing when he came along too. His presence was undoubtedly having a very softening effect upon Annie-Laurie.
Hilary looked about him. The genius of Malony had made a delightful flat out of this old place. The kitchen-sitting room was in the middle and the two bedrooms opened out of it to either side. The wood partitions were only plain deal boards, but they and the plain rough doors had been painted the same color as the fine old raftered roof overhead and they did not look incongruous. An old outhouse that had fallen into ruin had provided Malony with enough beautiful garnet-colored bricks to build a fireplace where a log fire was burning. To one side was a basket full of logs, and on the other side a homemade bookcase with a few books in it. There was a pretty old gate-legged table, a few old chairs, a Welsh dresser with flowered china upon it, an oil cooking stove, gay curtains at the windows, and cushions on the window seats. The floor had been stained to match the rafters, and was bare except for two cherry-colored rugs.
“It’s a pretty room, Annie-Laurie,” said Hilary gently.
Annie-Laurie smiled at him. “Yes. The furniture in the houseboat is all part of it, fastened in, so Mrs. Eliot gave us the table and chairs and the dresser and stove. And the furniture in our rooms, too. It’s all old. She got it at some place she knows of in London. Mrs. Eliot has been very good to me.”
“She’s very fond of you, Annie-Laurie—like everyone else.”
Annie-
Laurie gently lifted the Bastard’s head from her knee and got to her feet. Her face, relaxed and girlishly happy as she petted the Bastard, looked suddenly old again. She moved restlessly to the dresser and began to take down cups and saucers and plates. “You’d like a cup of tea,” she said.
“Oughtn’t we to wait for Malony?” inquired Hilary.
“He’s gone to Radford. He said he wouldn’t be back till late. I don’t know what he’s doing.” She had her back to Hilary, but from the curtness of her tone he judged that Malony had not betaken himself to Radford with her approval.
“Had you put that cake in the oven a bit earlier he wouldn’t have gone,” he said.
“It’s just about done.” She looked back at him over her shoulder, smiling a little anxiously. “But it’ll be all spongy and hot.”
“Elderly though I am, and much afflicted with various infirmities, I thank heaven that they do not include digestive weakness,” said Hilary fervently. “I am happy to tell you, Annie-Laurie, that no cake is ever too spongy or too hot for me.”
Annie-Laurie laughed outright. He really was the most comical old cove. It was just a gossip that he wanted, a gossip and a bit of cake, and perhaps to get away from the somewhat rarefied atmosphere that existed inside the Herb of Grace these days, with everyone except the General and Mrs. Eliot gone mad over those painted walls. Now that she had ascertained what he wanted she was suddenly happy and at ease with him. Comic though he was, he was pleasant to be with. One felt that whatever his past troubles he had come through them. He had the peacefulness of a ship drawing near to the harbor, and entering it gently with slight headway on.
While she boiled the water, cut bread and butter, took the cake out of the oven, and laid the table, Hilary chatted amiably about dogs, but behind his thick glasses his shortsighted steady gray eyes did not miss the personal details of this room. There was a bunch of prettily shaped brass bells hanging from the central beam. There were pots of beautifully arranged autumn berries on the window sills. The books in the bookcase included the poems of Yeats, several of the dramatic works of Ibsen, Barrie, J. M. Synge, and Sean O’Casey, the poems and most of the novels of Mary Webb.