by Henry Green
Nan was drowned in a wave of silent grief.
To see him supported between Mr. William and Robert with white bandages over his head and him so weak and feeble and who would never see again, and the nurse who was not fit to look after a sick boy she was that cantankerous.
She trailed away to a cup o’ tea in the kitchen.
Mrs. Haye went round to her sitting-room through the door in the wall of the rose garden. No solution yet, nothing found, nothing arranged. Only one or two letters of condolence left to answer. And the nurse was terrible. Terrible. The idea of carrying him up those narrow stairs. There might have been a nasty accident if the woman had had her way. And he was in such a difficult state of mind. You could not say a word to him without his taking it wrong. Really, the only thing to do was to watch him and await developments. And in two or three years’ time they would marry him to some nice girl, they would look out for one. There was—well, perhaps.
She went upstairs to dress for dinner.
He sat on a chair while the nurse got the bed ready. His head hurt him, the stairs must have done that. Poor Ruffles, it was too bad that he was finished. His head was throbbing; how he hated pain, and in the head it was unbearable. And this atmosphere of women. There was no male friend who would come to stay, he had always been too unpleasant, or had always tried to be clever, or in the movement. And now there was no escape, none. A long way away there might be a country of rest, made of ice, green in the depths, an ice that was not cold, a country to rest in. He would lie in the grotto where it was cool and where his head would be clear and light, and where there was nothing in the future, and nothing in the past. He would lie on the grass that was soft, and that had no ants and no bugs, and there would be no flies in the air and no sun above his head, but only a grey clearness in the sky, that stretched to mountains blue against the distance, through the door of his ice-house. There would be pine trees in clumps or suddenly alone, and strange little mounds, one after the other, that grew and grew in height till they met the mountains that cut off the sky. A country of opera-bouffe. And little men in scarlet and orange would come to fight up and down the little hills, some carrying flags, others water pistols. There would be no wounded and no dead, but they would be very serious.
Why couldn’t there be something really romantic and laughable in life? With sentimentality and tuppenny realism. Something to wake one out of an existence like this, where day would follow day with nothing to break the monotony, where meal followed meal and where people sat still between meals letting troubles fall into their lap. Nothing stirred.
“There, it is ready now. Take off your dressing-gown and lean on my shoulder. There we are. Would you prefer to have your dressings renewed now, or after dinner?”
“Oh, now, to get it over.”
He hated pain. He only half saw how pain fitted in with the scheme of things, and it made him afraid.
She was clinking bowls, and already the clean smell, far worse than any dung-heap, was all over the room.
Fingers began to unpin and to remove his bandages. It was hurting less today. No, it wasn’t. Oh . . .
3. PICTURE POSTCARDISM
IN THE green lane between Barwood and Huntly there was a stile in the tall hedge. Behind were laurels, and brambles, and box trees, and yews, all growing wild. At the end of a mossy path from the stile lay the house, built in yellow brick with mauve patterns, across a lawn of rank grass. It had been raised in 1840 by a Welshman, the date was over the door. But this was hardly visible, it was early morning and a heavy white mist smudged the outline. Birds were beginning to chatter, dawn was not far. There were no curtains to the house, and no blinds but one, torn, hanging askew across a dark window swinging loosely open on the ground floor. A few panes of glass were broken, and brown paper was stuck over the holes. There was a porch at the near end with most of the tiles off; they had been used to patch the roof, which was a dark blue-grey. At the far end was what had once been a hot-house, its glass broken.
The garden was dishevelled, no attempt had been made to clean it for many years, and the only sign of labour was the cabbages that Father, in a burst of energy, had planted in a former flower-bed. There was one huge beech tree, most beautifully tidy, and the only respectable member of the garden. The others merely went round the edge, keeping the chaotic growth from the neat meadows. The whole garden gave the effect of being unhappy because it had too much freedom. It was sad. And the house was sadder still with its wistful mauve patterns, looking so deserted and forlorn although it was lived in. Nobody loved, and, though by nature so very feminine, it had to remain neuter and wretched. No one cared two farthings, and it felt that deeply. No one minded. The birds were chirruping heartlessly. From over the river the church struck a silver five.
At the back was a yard, in the middle a hen coop made out of an old army hut. A cock was crowing within, had been doing so for some time. There is a stable, with a rickety door off its lower hinge hanging ajar. A rat plays inside. There are holes in the red roof of the outhouse, gaping at the pink sky. Broken flagstones lie about, and weeds have grown through the cracks. The back door has lost its paint. The four windows stare vacantly with emptiness behind their leaded panes. The mist hangs sluggishly about, and the air is chill as the cock crows in his raucous tenor.
Then the sun lights up the top of the beech tree into golden fire, and there is a movement in the paleness. It begins to go, while the sky fades back into everyday life. The fire creeps down the beech till the tops of the overgrown laurels are alight, the mist has drawn off to the river just below there. Everything brightens and stretches out of sleep, the sky is blue almost. A butterfly aimlessly flutters over the cabbages, the flycatcher swoops down and she is swallowed; he was on guard already. A pigeon drives by, a bright streak of silver painted on him by the sun. The birds chirp in earnest as the sun climbs higher and begins to make shadows, while anywhere that a drop of dew catches the light he breaks into a gem. A gossamer web will dart suddenly across something, like a rainbow thread.
The chickens begin to make a great noise, scolding and crooning in their wooden prison, sounding very greedy. They want to be let out, for a late worm, who has come up to see the new day, may yet be left by the gobbling blackbirds and thrushes. The last mists are drawing out, a breeze is stirring, and the morning is crystal. The dew has made a spangled dress for everyone, and the weeds and straggling bushes are all under a canopy of brilliant drops of light.
A starling sits upon the chimney pot preening himself. A crow flies over the garden, glancing to right and left. The three yews are renewing their green in the sun, the laurels are shiny and clean. A rabbit hops out, looks round, and begins to nibble at the fresh grass, his last meal before he goes to bed.
The air is new.
All are one community, but it will not be for long. When the sun sucks up the dew and the moistness of the gossamer, everyone will be for himself again. Each bird will sing his own song, and not the song of the garden. “Me, me, me,” he will say, “I am the best.” And the nettles will whisper to each other, “You or me, you or me,” laurels, yews, box trees and brambles too. Even the beech tree who has won to his great height and who has no rival in fifteen miles, he, too, will be straining, straining higher to the sun. It is all the sun, who has not climbed high enough yet.
The back door opened and she came out, pausing a moment before shutting the door behind her. She was tall and dressed in red slippers, a dirty blue serge skirt, and a thin, stale mauve bodice. She was so graceful! Her skin was unhealthy-looking, dark and puffed, her mouth small, the lips red. Her hair, black and in disorder, tangled down to her eyebrows. Across one cheek a red scar curved. Her eyes, a dark brown and very large, had a light that burned.
She felt alive, and she could see that the yard was dead—yes, she was like that this morning.
She stepped out into the yard, slammed the door behind her, and swept through the weeds that sprinkled her with dew. One big bramble twined so amorou
sly round her skirt that her legs could not tear themselves free, and she had to bend to tear him off superbly. All over at the contact of her hands he trembled, and trembled there for some time. She went to the pump which stood near the outhouse, and the rat fled down his hole. She worked the pump handle till it chugged up water for her which she splashed over her face, wetting her dress as well. She went to the hen coop, opened the door, and stood waiting. The cock walked sedately out first and she hurried him up with her carpet slipper, laughing to see him flustered. Her voice was deep, and, of course, had a coarse note in it. And then she went back into the house, all wet, banging the back door behind her.
Snores, deep and thick, came down from an open window above into the yard.
The cock was angry and he watched his hens for a moment with a sense of humiliation, one claw stopped in mid-air. He did not know but he felt out of sorts. Not in actual ill-health but liverish. All the same, if there was anyone to look at him they would see a fine sheen to his feathers today. He cried out to attract attention, and Natacha, who was by his side, said duteously that his ruff was stupefying in its beauty, rivalling the sun with its brightness. After it was all over, leaving Natacha squawking, he fluttered up on to the top of the coop. He was feeling ambitious, in revolt, the world was all wrong somehow, too soft, not enough dust for a dust-bath. There was not even a dung-heap in this wretched yard. Everything was too soft—the sun, and the dew, and the gentle weeds. He wanted heat, heat. Between intervals of killing things on himself he stretched out his neck and told this to the world, and that he was king of this castle.
Joan upstairs is putting on her stockings. What a lot of holes there are in them, but no matter. Sunday today. How will Father take the church bells? Last Sunday he had not minded very much. It is going to be beautifully hot, and Father will hate that too, poor old thing. George hated the heat, only she loved it. The wonderful sun!
How red her hands are getting, and rough. That was the housework, while nice, young, rich ladies kept theirs folded with gloves on, and they had coloured umbrellas to keep the sun off. To be frightened of the sun! Nice young ladies had never done a day’s work in their lives. Why should she work and they be idle? Oh, if she were like one of them! She would have light blue undies. Wouldn’t she look a dream in the glass! And stays? No, no stays. But perhaps, they must fortify you so.
But what was the good of dreaming?—dreaming never did anyone any good. There was George, he might be working in the meadow tomorrow, and then she would lean over the stile—climb over the stile?—and talk to him, and get a few shy answers back, perhaps. George was wonderful, George was so exciting. With his fair hair, with his honey-coloured eyes, with his brick-red face so passionate, with his strength, with his smell. The one that drove the milk factory’s lorry and that was always smoking a cigarette on his upper lip and that had that look in his eyes like a snake looking for his prey, she could not understand how she had seen anything in him. But George, with his honey-coloured ones, slow, but with it at the back of them, and with his shortness, and with his force, oh, it would, it must be something this time after such years of waiting. To find out all about it. “Yes, George, go on, go on.”
What nice toes she had, except that the nails were rather dirty. But what was the good of keeping clean now? They weren’t in the Vicarage any more, and there was no one to tell her how dirty or how pretty they were, except Father when he was drunk, but that, of course, did not count. George would say all that. She would teach him, if he didn’t know.
She moves to a looking-glass and wrestles with her hair. In the glass was the brown-papered wall behind, the paper hanging in strips, showing the yellow plaster beneath. Those holes in the roof. And there was the rash that broke out in the top right-hand corner of the glass where the paint had come off the back. She was so miserable. The only chair has no back, and the front leg is rickety, so that you have to lean over to the right when you sit down. The bare boards of the floor are not clean, the bedclothes are frowsy, the pillow greasy. Everything is going to go wrong today. It is close in here. She goes across the room and flings the window open.
By the window there was a small table, on it a looking-glass. She never used this one because you had to sit down to it, and that was tiresome. Draped round the oval frame and tied in wide, drooping bows to the two uprights was a broad white ribbon. Tied to the handles of the two drawers beneath were white bows also. On the low table were hair-brushes, a comb with three teeth out, a saucer full of pins and hair-pins and safety pins and a medicine bottle, empty, with a bow round the neck made out of what had been left of the white ribbon. Violets, in a little bunch, lay by the bottle, dead.
She goes through the door into the next room, which is his. He is lying noisily asleep, with the bedclothes half off his chest, and his red beard is spread greasily over the lead-white of his skin. One arm hangs down to the floor, the other, trying to follow it, is flung across his chest. His face has a nose, flat, hair red and skin blotchy. There is the usual homely smell of gin. The window was wide open to let out the snores.
And this was Father, Daddy, Daddums. Oh, he was pretty in bed. She couldn’t remember him very well as he was at the Vicarage such ages ago, without his beard. It had been wonderful then: they had had a servant, which you could order about. And Mrs. Haye, she used to terrify her, now she did not care two snaps of the finger although she had run away from her when she had seen her coming down the lane the other day; and Mrs. Haye had called him Mr. Entwhistle, the ordinary people, Passon, and Colonel Waterpower, whom they had met occasionally, had called him Padre. Silly all those people were with their silly ways, but they were so well dressed and the ladies too, those stuffs, so . . . And it was his fault that they were like this. You could see what people thought by their faces as they passed, they always went a little quicker when they caught sight of you coming. And they might still have been in the Vicarage.
Poor Father, perhaps it was not all his fault. And after all she was the only person left now to look after him. And the life wasn’t too bad, he left her alone except when he was drunk and wanted someone to talk to. And he told her the most wonderful things. He was really a wonderful man, a genius. All it was, was that he was misunderstood. He saw visions and things. And really, in the end, it was all Mother’s fault for being such a fool, though of course Father had been fond of gin before that. Mother, when she lay dying, with Father and her at the bedside, instead of whispering something she ought to have, had cried out quite loud “John” as if she was calling, right in front of the doctor and the village nurse and that. Then she was dead, and they were her last words. John was still the postman. She had been a fool, and Father had drunk much more gin ever afterwards. After Mother died Father had been unfrocked, that was soon after the beginning of the war, partly for the gin, and partly for the talk about Mother. Mr. Davies died in time, and with most of the money that Uncle Jim had left them when he was killed they had bought this house here, only two miles away. It would have been nicer to go somewhere new, but as Father said, “he was not going to run away from those that had hounded him from the parish.”
What was she doing standing still? She had to wake him and then get breakfast and then clear up. “Here, wake up. Wake up,” and she picks up the clothes, flung anyhow on the floor, and smooths them, putting them at the foot of the bed. Roses on wallpaper, roses hung down in strips from the damp wall pointing. “Get up, get up.” He was shamming, that he might give her more work to do. Yes, that was it. “Do you hear? Get up.” She lifts his white shoulders and shakes him till the blue watery eyes open. She lets him flop back on to the pillow, the red finger-marks on his skin fading away again.
His eyes open painfully. He scratches, gazing vacantly at the ceiling.
“Another day?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll go and get you some water, if you’ll get up.”
“Well, go and get it then.”
She goes to the pump, an
d he drags himself out of bed. He is short and thick-set, with bulging flesh. He has been sleeping in an old pair of flannel trousers. He sits on a box by the window. He looks out beyond the garden, over the meadow and the quiet river, to where the trees cover a hill on the other side. Their green dresses are blurred by the delicate blue mist that swims softly round them, the deep shade yawns the sleep away. In the meadows some cows lie in the open, it is not hot enough yet to drive them under the hedges. Below, a hen chuckles with satisfaction. How quiet it all was, nothing wrong in the best of all possible worlds. They thought that, all the rest of them, they did not care. And he was forgotten. Nature insulted him. What right had the country to look like this, basking in the sunshine while he lived in the middle of it? He with his great thoughts, his great sufferings. Why didn’t the State support him, instead of letting him live in squalor? He deserved as much of the money from the bloated capitalist as anyone else. It was their class that had brought him to this, they had never paid him enough, for one thing. It was their fault. Where was the water?
Today was going to go badly, it was going to be terribly hot. Sunday too, so that the church bells would ring and then he would remember Barwood church, the little altar, the roses—his roses—growing outside. He felt so ill today, not at all strong. He would weep when the bells rang, weep because so many things were over, the Colonel calling him Padre, the deference of the churchwarden. How great his tears would be. All that was so far and yet so close. Every day he thought it over. But there was no need to regret it, he was working out his salvation here, if he had stayed on in that Vicarage he would have been dead alive. He was so vital here, and then somehow the grasp of it would leave him.
