2
One afternoon in the beginning of May, when Teresa came on to the loggia at tea-time, she found no one there but David, sitting motionless. He looked at her gravely, and said:
“The doctor came this afternoon.”
“Did he? What did he say?”
“He said I was all right now.”
“That’s splendid.”
“So ... I must be getting back.”
“When?”
“Well, you see, I’ve no right to stay a minute longer than I need. And so ... if it’s convenient ... well, really, I should be going to-morrow.”
“Should you?” And there was the minimum of conventional regret in her voice, “I’ll tell Rendall to pack for you.”
“I can pack for myself ... thank you,” he said gruffly.
They were silent. His eyes absently swept over the view, then the border, and then lingered for a few seconds on the double row of ancient hawthorns, which, before the days of Plasencia and its garden, had stood on either side of a lane leading to a vanished village, and then fastened on the gibbous moon, pressed, like the petal of a white rose, against the blue sky, idly enjoying, as it were from the wings, the fragrance and tempered sunshine, while it waited for its cue to come on and play for the millionth millionth time its rôle of the amorous potent ghost.
“You’ve all been very kind to me ... you, specially,” he said.
“Oh ... it’s been a pleasure,” she answered dully.
“I’d like—if you could do with me—to come back for a wee visit in the summer ... before I say my first mass.” Then he added, with a little smile, “but maybe your mother won’t want to have me.”
“Oh ... I’m sure ... she’d be delighted,” she said, with nervous little catch in her voice.
He looked at her, squarely, sombrely: “No, she wouldn’t be delighted ... but I’ll come all the same,” and he gave a short laugh.
“Are you ... you ... when are you going to be ordained?”
“It will be the beginning of October, I think,” and again his eyes wandered absently over the view, the border, the hedge of hawthorn; and her eyes followed his.
The Plot ... the Popish Plot.... “Please to remember the fifth of November,” ... how many times Guy Fawkes must have been burned in that vanished village! On frosty nights when the lamp-light and fire-light glowed through the cosy red curtains of the inn parlour, and the boys wore red worsted mufflers, and stamped to keep their feet warm, and held their hands out to the flame of the bonfire. For they had been wise English people who had lived a hundred years ago in that vanished village; they had known what it all came to: that there was Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, then Spring again; that there was good ale to be had at the Saracen’s Head, for the paying; that Goody Green, who kept the shop, gave short measure, but this did not cause her to be pinched by elves, nor to come to a bad end; that the parson was a kind man, though a wheezy one, and liked his glass of ale, and that whatever he might say in his sermons, the daffodil, at any rate, died on Easter Day; that very few of the wives and mothers had gone to Church maids, but they were none the worse for that, while Marjory from the farm up by Hobbett’s Corner hadn’t gone to Church at all, because she had been seduced by a fine young gentleman staying at the Saracen’s Head to shoot wild duck, and that, in consequence, she had gone away to London, where she had married a grocer’s apprentice, who became in time an alderman, and drove her about in a fine coach; that William Hobson ran away to sea, and was never heard of again; that Stan Huckle had emigrated to America, whence he wrote that he had become a Methodist, because they had strawberry festivals with lumps of frozen cream in their chapel; in fact, that it was no use seeking for meanings and morals, because there were none. And then, one Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter, one took to one’s bed, and after a time one’s toes grew cold, and the room grew dark, and one heard a voice saying: “Paw ole man! The end’s near now. Well, it’ll be a blessed release—reely.” And that was all, except, before the dim eyes closed, a memory ... or was it the sudden scent of May? Once long ago, in that hawthorn lane, beneath the moon, migratory dreams had seemed to flock together from all quarters like homing birds, and the Future had suddenly sprung up, and all the stars snowed down on it, till it too was a hawthorn bush covered with a million small white blossoms, in which, next spring, the birds would build their nests.
“I have noticed,” she said, “the Scotch have a great sense of the ‘sinfulness of sin.’”
“Yes ... I think that’s true,” he answered.
“St. Paul invented sin, I suppose; Jesus didn’t.”
“St. Paul invent sin! You know that’s not true—it’s as old as apples,” and he smiled down on her with that tender, indulgent smile that made her feel like a little girl.
At tea he told the Doña what the doctor had said:
“And so I’ll not trespass any longer on your hospitality, Mrs. Lane,” he added, with the laborious gentility probably learnt from his aunt in Inverness.
“Oh, well, it has been a great pleasure having you,” said the Doña, with more geniality than she had shown him for weeks, “I’m sure we shall all miss you—shan’t we, Teresa?”
“I’m sure we shall,” she answered, in a calm, cool voice; no tinge of colour touching her pale cheeks, but a sudden spark of hostility and triumph leaping into her eyes as she met those of the Doña.
“I should like to come and see you all again, before I say my first mass,” he said, looking the Doña squarely in the face.
“Oh, yes ... certainly ... but we generally go away in the summer.”
“I was thinking ... the end of September, maybe?”
“Oh, we’ll sure to be back by then,” cut in Dick, always on the alert to take the edge off his wife’s grudging invitations, “Yes, you come to us at the end of September; though, for the sake of the children’s garden, it’s a pity it couldn’t be after your ordination!”