Anne Severn and the Fieldings

by May Sinclair

II

ADOLESCENTS

i

For the next two years Anne came again and again, staying four months at Wyck and four months in London with Grandmamma Severn and Aunt Emily, and four months with Grandpapa Everitt at the Essex Farm.

When she was twelve they sent her to school in Switzerland for three years. Then back to Wyck, after eight months of London and Essex in between.

Only the times at Wyck counted for Anne. Her calendar showed them clear with all their incidents recorded; thick black lines blotted out the other days, as she told them off, one by one. Three years and eight months were scored through in this manner.

Anne at fifteen was a tall girl with long hair tied in a big black bow at the cape of her neck. Her vague nose had settled into the forward-raking line that made her the dark likeness of her father. Her body was slender but solid; the strong white neck carried her head high with the poise of a runner. She looked at least seventeen in her clean-cut coat and skirt. Probably she wouldn't look much older for another fifteen years.

Robert Fielding stared with incredulity at this figure which had pursued him down the platform at Wyck and now seized him by the arm.

"Is it—is it Anne?"

"Of course it is. Why, didn't you expect me?"

"I think I expected something smaller and rather less grown-up."

"I'm not grown-up. I'm the same as ever."

"Well, you're not little Anne any more."

She squeezed his arm, hanging on it in her old loving way. "No. But I'm still me. And I'd have known you anywhere."

"What? With my grey hair?"

"I love your grey hair."

It made him handsome, more lovable than ever. Anne loved it as she loved his face, tanned and tightened by sun and wind, the long hard-drawn lines, the thin, kind mouth, the clear, greenish brown eyes, quick and kind.

Colin stood by the dogcart in the station yard. Colin was changed. He was no longer the excited child who came rushing to you. He stood for you to come to him, serious and shy. His child's face was passing from prettiness to a fine, sombre beauty.

"What's happened to Col-Col? He's all different?"

"Is he? Wait," Uncle Robert said, "till you've seen Jerrold."

"Oh, is Jerrold going to be different, too?"

"I'm afraid he'll look a little different."

"I don't care," she said. "He'll be him."

She wanted to come back and find everybody and everything the same, looking exactly as she had left them. What they had once been for her they must always be.

They drove slowly up Wyck Hill. The tree-tops meeting overhead made a green tunnel. You came out suddenly into the sunlight at the top. The road was the same. They passed by the Unicorn Inn and the Post Office, through the narrow crooked street with the church and churchyard at the turn; and so into the grey and yellow Market Square with the two tall elms standing up on the little green in the corner. They passed the Queen's Head; the powder-blue sign hung out from the yellow front the same as ever. Next came the fountain and the four forked roads by the signpost, then the dip of the hill to the left and the grey ball-topped stone pillars of the Park gates on the right.

At the end of the beech avenue she saw the house; the three big, sharp-pointed gables of the front: the little gable underneath in the middle, jutting out over the porch. That was the bay of Aunt Adeline's bed-room. She used to lean out of the lattice windows and call to the children in the garden. The house was the same.

So were the green terraces and the wide, flat-topped yew walls, and the great peacocks carved out of the yew; and beyond them the lawn, flowing out under banks of clipped yew down to the goldfish pond. They were things that she had seen again and again in sleep and memory; things that had made her heart ache thinking of them; that took her back and back, and wouldn't let her be. She had only to leave off what she was doing and she saw them; they swam before her eyes, covering the Swiss mountains, the flat Essex fields, the high white London houses. They waited for her at the waking end of dreams.

She had found them again.

A gap in the green walls led into the flower garden, and there, down the path between tall rows of phlox and larkspurs and anchusa, of blue heaped on blue, Aunt Adeline came holding up a tall bunch of flowers, blue on her white gown, blue on her own milk-white and blue. She came, looking like a beautiful girl; the same, the same; Anne had seen her in dreams, walking like that, tall among the tall flowers.

She never hurried to meet you; hurrying would have spoiled the beauty of her movement; she came slowly, absent-mindedly, stopping now and then to pluck yet another of the blue spires. Robert stood still in the path to watch her. She was smiling a long way off, intensely aware of him.

"Is that Anne?" she said.

"Yes, Auntie, really Anne."

"Well, you are a big girl, aren't you?"

She kissed her three times and smiled, looking away again over her flower-beds. That was the difference between Aunt Adeline and Uncle Robert. His eyes made you important; they held you all the time he talked to you; when he smiled, it was for you altogether and not for himself at all. Her eyes never looked at you long; her smile wandered, it was half for you and half for herself, for something she was thinking of that wasn't you.

"What have you done with your father?" she said.

"I was to tell you. Daddy's ever so sorry; but he can't come till to-morrow. A horrid man kept him on business."

"Oh?" A little crisping wave went over Aunt Adeline's face, a wave of vexation. Anne saw it.

"He is really sorry. You should have heard him damning and cursing."

They laughed. Adeline was appeased. She took her husband's arm and drew him to herself. Something warm and secret seemed to pass between them.

Anne said to herself: "That's how people look—" without finishing her thought.

Lest she should feel shut out he turned to her.

"Well, are you glad to be back again, Anne?" he said.

"Glad? I'm never glad to be anywhere else. I've been counting the weeks and the days and the minutes."

"The minutes?"

"Yes. In the train."

They had come up on to the flagged terrace. Anne looked round her.

"Where's Jerrold?" she said.

And they laughed again. "There's no doubt," said Uncle Robert, "about it being the same Anne."

ii

A day passed. John Severn had come. He was to stay with the Fieldings for the last weeks of his leave. He had followed Adeline from the hot terrace to the cool library. When she wanted the sun again he would follow her out.

Robert and Colin were down at the Manor Farm. Eliot was in the schoolroom, reading.

Jerrold and Anne sat together on the grass under the beech trees, alone.

They had got over the shock of the first encounter, when they met at arms' length, not kissing, but each remembering, shyly, that they used to kiss. If they had not got over the "difference," the change of Anne from a child to a big girl, of Jerrold from a big boy to a man's height and a man's voice, it was because, in some obscure way, that difference fascinated them. The great thing was that underneath it they were both, as Anne said, "the same."

"I don't know what I'd have done, Jerrold, if you hadn't been."

"You might have known I would be."

"I did know."

"I say, what a thundering lot of hair you've got. I like it."

"Do you like what Auntie Adeline calls my new nose?"

"Awfully."

She meditated. "Jerrold, do you remember Benjy?"

"Rather."

"Dear Benjy… Do you know, I can hardly believe I'm here. I never thought I should come again."

"But why shouldn't you?"

"I don't know. Only I think every time something'll happen to prevent me. I'm afraid of being ill or dying before I can get away. And they might send me anywhere any day. It's awful to be so uncertain."

"Don't think about it. You're here now."

"Oh Jerrold, supposing it was the last time—"

"It isn't the last time. Don't spoil it by thinking."

"You'd think if you were me."

"I say—you don't mean they're not decent to you?"

"Who, Grandmamma and Grandpapa? They're perfect darlings. So's Aunt Emily. But they're awfully old and they can't play at anything, except bridge. And it isn't the same thing at all. Besides, I don't—"

She paused. It wasn't kind to the poor things to say "I don't love them the same."

"Do you like us so awfully, then?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad you like us."

They were silent.

Up and down the flagged terrace above them Aunt Adeline and Uncle Robert walked together. The sound of his voice came to them, low and troubled.

Anne listened, "Is anything wrong?" she said. "They've been like that for ages."

"Daddy's bothered about Eliot."

"Eliot?"

"About his wanting to be a doctor."

"Is Auntie Adeline bothered?"

"No. She would be if she knew. But she doesn't think it'll happen. She never thinks anything will happen that she doesn't like. But it will. They can't keep him off it. He's been doing medicine at Cambridge because they won't let him go and do it at Bart's. It's just come out that he's been at it all the time. Working like blazes."

"Why shouldn't he be a doctor if he likes?"

"Because he's the eldest son. It wouldn't matter so much if it was only Colin or me. But Eliot ought to have the estate. And he says he won't have it. He doesn't want it. He says Daddy's got to leave it to me. That's what's worrying the dear old thing. He thinks it wouldn't be fair."

"Who to?"

Jerrold laughed. "Why, to Eliot. He's got it into his dear old head that he ought to have it. He can't see that Eliot knows his own business best. It would be most awfully in his way… It's pretty beastly for me, too. I don't like taking it when I know Daddy wants Eliot to have it. That's to say, he doesn't want; he'd like me to have it, because I'd take care of it. But that makes him all the more stuck on Eliot, because he thinks it's the right thing. I don't like having it in any case."

"Why ever not?"

"Well, I can only have it if Daddy dies, and I'd rather die myself first."

"That's how I feel about my farm."

"Beastly, isn't it? Still, I'm not worrying. Daddy's frightfully healthy, thank Heaven. He'll live to be eighty at the very least. Why—I should be fifty."

"You're all right," said Anne. "But it's awful for me. Grandpapa might die any day. He's seventy-five now. It'll be ages before you're fifty."

"And I may never be it. India may polish me off long before that." He laughed his happy laugh. The idea of his own death seemed to Jerrold irresistibly funny.

"India?"

He laughed again at her dismay.

"Rather. I'm going in for the Indian Civil."

"Oh Jerrold—you'll be away years and years, nearly all the time, like
Daddy, and I shan't ever see you."

"I shan't start for ages. Not for five years. Lots of time to see each other in."

"Lots of time for not seeing each other ever again."

She sat staring mournfully, seeing before her the agony of separation.

"Nonsense," said Jerrold. "Why on earth shouldn't you come out to India too? I say, that would be a lark, wouldn't it? You would come, wouldn't you?"

"Like a shot," said Anne.

"Would you give up your farm to come?"

"I'd give up anything."

"That's all right. Let's go and play tennis."

They played for two hours straight on end, laughing and shouting. Adeline, intensely bored by Eliot and his absurd affairs, came down the lawn to look at them. She loved their laughter. It was good to have Anne there. Anne was so happy.

John Severn came to her.

"Did you ever see anything happier than that absurd boy?" she said. "Why can't Eliot be jolly and contented, too, like Jerrold?"

"Don't you think the chief reason may be that he isn't Jerrold?"

"Jerrold's adorable. He's never given me a day's trouble since he was born."

"No. It's other women he'll give trouble to," said John, "before he's done."

iii

Colin was playing. All afternoon he had been practising with fury; first scales, then exercises. Then a pause; and now, his fingers slipped into the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata.

Secretly, mysteriously he began; then broke, sharply, impatiently, crescendo, as the passion of the music mounted up and up. And now as it settled into its rhythm his hands ran smoothly and joyously along.

The west window of the drawing-room was open to the terrace. Eliot and
Anne sat out there and listened.

"He's wonderful, isn't he?" she said.

Eliot shook his head. "Not so wonderful as he was. Not half so wonderful as he ought to be. He'll never be good enough for a professional. He knows he won't."

"What's happened?"

"Nothing. That's just it. Nothing ever will happen. He's stuck. It's the same with his singing. He'll never be any good if he can't go away and study somewhere. If it isn't Berlin or Leipzig it ought to be London. But father can't live there and the mater won't go anywhere without him. So poor Col-Col's got to stick here doing nothing, with the same rotten old masters telling him things he knew years ago…. It'll be worse next term when he goes to Cheltenham. He won't be able to practice, and nobody'll care a damn…. Not that that would matter if he cared himself."

Colin was playing the slow movement now, the grave, pure passion, pressed out from the solemn bass, throbbed, tense with restraint.

"Oh Eliot, he does care."

"In a way. Not enough to keep on at it. You've got to slog like blazes, if you want to get on."

"Jerrold won't, ever, then."

"Oh yes he will. He'll get on all right, because he doesn't care; because work comes so jolly easy to him. He hasn't got to break his heart over it…. The trouble with Colin is that he cares, awfully, for such a lot of other things. Us, for instance. He'll leave off in the middle of a movement if he hears Jerrold yelling for him. He ought to be able to chuck us all; we're all of us in his way. He ought to hate us. He ought to hate Jerrold worst of all."

Adeline and John Severn came round the corner of the terrace.

"What's all this about hating?" he said.

"What do you mean, Eliot?" said she.

Eliot raised himself wearily. "I mean," he said, "you'll never be any good at anything if you're not prepared to commit a crime for it."

"I know what I'd commit a crime for," said Anne. "But I shan't tell."

"You needn't. You'd do it for anybody you were gone on."

"Well, I would. I'd tell any old lie to make them happy. I'd steal for them if they were hungry. I'd kill anybody who hurt them."

"I believe you would," said Eliot.

"We know who Anne would commit her crimes for."

"We don't. We don't know anything she doesn't want us to," said Eliot, shielding her from his mother's mischief.

"That's right, Eliot, stick up for her," said John. He knew what she was thinking of. "Would Jerrold commit a crime?" he said.

"Sooner than any of us. But not for the Indian Civil. He'd rob, butcher, lie himself black in the face for anything he really cared for."

"He would for Colin," said Anne.

"Rob? Butcher and lie?" Her father meditated.

"It sounds like Jerrold, doesn't it?" said Adeline. "Absurd children. Thank goodness they don't any of them know what they're talking about…. And here's tea."

Indoors the music stopped suddenly and Colin came out, ready.

"What's Jerrold doing?" he said.

It was, as Eliot remarked, a positive obsession.

iv

Tea was over. Adeline and Anne sat out together on the terrace. The others had gone. Adeline looked at her watch.

"What time is it?" said Anne.

"Twenty past five."

Anne started up. "And I'm going to ride with Jerrold at half-past."

"Are you? I thought you were going to stay with me."

Anne turned. "Do you want me to, Auntie?"

"What do you think?"

"If you really want me to, of course I'll stay. Jerry won't mind."

"You darling… And I used to think you were never going to like me. Do you remember?"

"I remember I was a perfect little beast to you."

"You were. But you do love me a bit now, don't you?"

"What do you think?"

Anne leaned over her, covering her, supporting herself by the arms of the garden chair. She brought her face close down, not kissing her, but looking into her eyes and smiling, teasing in her turn.

"You love me," said Adeline; "but you'd cut me into little bits if it would please Jerrold."

Anne drew back suddenly, straightened herself and turned away.

"Run off, you monkey, or you'll keep him waiting. I don't want you …
Wait … Where's Uncle Robert?"

"Down at the farm."

"Bother his old farm. Well—you might ask that father of yours to come and amuse me."

"I'll go and get him now. Are you sure you don't want me?"

"Quite sure, you funny thing."

Anne ran, to make up for lost time.

v

The sun had come round on to the terrace. Adeline rose from her chair.
John Severn rose, stiffly.

She had made him go with her to the goldfish pond, made him walk round the garden, listening to him and not listening, detaching herself wilfully at every turn, to gather more and more of her blue flowers; made him come into the drawing-room and look on while she arranged them exquisitely in the tall Chinese jars. She had brought him out again to sit on the terrace in the sun; and now, in her restlessness, she was up again and calling to him to follow.

"It's baking here. Shall we go into the library?"

"If you like." He sighed as he said it.

As long as they stayed out of doors he felt safe and peaceful; but he was afraid of the library. Once there, shut in with her in that room which she was consecrating to their communion, heaven only knew what sort of fool he might make of himself. Last time it was only the sudden entrance of Robert that had prevented some such manifestation. And to-day, her smile and her attentive attitude told him that she expected him to be a fool, that she looked to his folly for her entertainment.

He had followed her like a dog; and as if he had been a dog her hand patted a place on the couch beside her. And because he was a fool and foredoomed he took it.

There was a silence. Then suddenly he made up his mind.

"Adeline, I'm very sorry, but I find I've got to go to-morrow."

"Go? Up to town?"

"Yes."

"But—you're coming back again."

"I'm—afraid—not."

"My dear John, you haven't been here a week. I thought you were going to stay with us till your leave was up."

"So did I. But I find I can't."

"Whyever not?"

"Oh—there are all sorts of things to be seen to."

"Nonsense, what do you suppose Robert will say to you, running off like this?"

"Robert will understand."

"It's more than I do."

"You can see, can't you, that I'm going because I must, not because I want to."

"Well, I think it's horrid of you. I shall miss you frightfully."

"Yes, you were good enough to say I amused you."

"You're not amusing me now, my dear … Are you going to take Anne away from me too?"

"Not if you'd like to keep her."

"Of course I'd like to keep her."

He paused, brooding, wrenching one of his lean hands with the other.

"There's one thing I must ask you—"

"Ask, ask, then."

"I told you Anne would care for you if you gave her time. She does care for you."

"Yes. Odd as it may seem, I really believe she does."

"Well—don't let her be hurt by it."

"Hurt? Who's going to hurt her?"

"You, if you let her throw herself away on you when you don't want her."

"Have I behaved as if I didn't want her?"

"You've behaved like an angel. All the same, you frighten me a little. You've a terrible fascination for the child. Don't use it too much. Let her feelings alone. Don't work on them for the fun of seeing what she'll do next. If she tries to break away don't bring her back. Don't jerk her on the chain. Don't—amuse yourself with Anne."

"So that's how you think of me?"

"Oh, you know how I think."

"Do I? Have I ever known? You say the cruellest things. Is there anything else I'm not to do to her?"

"Yes. For God's sake don't tease her about Jerrold."

"My dear John, you talk as if it was serious. I assure you Jerrold isn't thinking about Anne."

"And Anne isn't 'thinking' about Jerrold. They don't think, poor dears. They don't know what's happening to them. None of us know what's happening to us till it happens. Then it's too late."

"Well, I'll promise not to do any of these awful things if you'll tell me, honestly, why you're going."

He stared at her.

"Tell you? You know why. I am going for the same reason that I came.
How can you possibly ask me to stay?"

"Of course, if you feel like that about it—"

"You'll say I'd no business to come if I feel like that. But I knew I wasn't hurting anybody but myself. I knew you were safe. There's never been anybody but Robert."

"Never. Never for a minute."

"I tell you I know that. I always have known it. And I understand it. What I can't understand is why, when that's that, you make it so hard for me."

"Do I make it hard for you?"

"Damnably."

"You poor thing. But you'll get over it."

"I'm not young enough to get over it. Does it look like getting over it?
It's been going on for twenty-two years."

"Oh come, not all the time, John."

"Pretty nearly. On and off."

"More off than on, I think."

"What does that matter when it's 'on' now? Anyhow I've got to go."

"Go, if you must. Do the best for yourself, my dear. Only don't say I made you."

"I'm not saying anything."

"Well—I'm sorry."

All the same her smile declared her profound and triumphant satisfaction with herself. It remained with her after he had gone. She would rather he had stayed, following her about, waiting for her, ready to her call, amusing her; but his going was the finer tribute to her power: the finest, perhaps, that he could have well paid. She hadn't been prepared for such a complete surrender.

vi

Something had happened to Eliot. He sulked. Indoors and out, working and playing, at meal-times and bed-time he sulked. Jerrold said of him that he sulked in his sleep.

Two things made his behaviour inexplicable. To begin with, it was uncalled for. Robert Fielding, urged by John Severn in a last interview, had given in all along the line. Not only had Eliot leave to stick to his medicine (which he would have done in any case), but he was to go to Bart's to work for his doctor's degree when his three years at Cambridge were ended. His father had made a new will, leaving the estate to Jerrold and securing to the eldest son an income almost large enough to make up for the loss. Eliot, whose ultimate aim was research work, now saw all the ways before him cleared. He had no longer anything to sulk for.

Still more mysteriously, his sulking appeared to be related to Anne. He had left off going for walks alone with her in the fields and woods; he didn't show her things under his microscope any more. If she leaned over his shoulder he writhed himself away; if his hand blundered against hers he drew it back as if her touch burnt him. More often than not he would go out of the room if she came into it. Yet as long as she was there he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She would be sitting still, reading, when she would be aware, again and again, of Eliot's eyes, lifted from his book to fasten on her. She could feel them following her when she walked away.

One wet day in August they were alone together in the schoolroom, reading. Suddenly Anne felt his eyes on her. Their look was intent, penetrating, disturbing; it burned at her under his jutting, sombre eyebrows.

"Is there anything funny about me?" she said.

"Funny? No. Why?"

"Because you keep on looking at me."

"I didn't know I was looking at you."

"Well, you were. You're always doing it. And I can't think why."

"It isn't because I want to."

He held his book up so that it hid his face.

"Then don't do it," she said. "You needn't."

"I shan't," he snarled, savagely, behind his screen.

But he did it again and again, as if for the life of him he couldn't help it. There was something about it mysterious and exciting. It made Anne want to look at Eliot when he wasn't looking at her.

She liked his blunt, clever face, the half-ugly likeness of his father's with its jutting eyebrows and jutting chin, its fine grave mouth and greenish-brown eyes; mouth and eyes that had once been so kind and were now so queer. Eliot's face made her keep on wondering what it was doing. She had to look at it.

One day, when she was looking, their eyes met. She had just time to see that his mouth had softened as if he were pleased to find her looking at him. And his eyes were different; not cross, but dark now and unhappy; they made her feel as if she had hurt him.

They were in the library. Uncle Robert was there, sitting in his chair behind them, at the other end of the long room. She had forgotten Uncle Robert.

"Oh, Eliot," she said, "have I done anything?"

"Not that I know of." His face stiffened.

"You look as if I had. Have I?"

"Don't talk such putrid rot. As if I cared what you did. Can't you leave me alone?"

And he jumped up and left the room.

And there was Uncle Robert in his chair, watching her, looking kind and sorry.

"What's the matter with him?" she said. "Why is he so cross?"

"You mustn't mind. He doesn't mean it."

"No, but it's so funny of him. He's only cross with me; and I haven't done anything."

"It isn't that."

"What is it, then? I believe he hates me."

"No. He doesn't hate you, Anne. He's going through a bad time, that's all. He can't help being cross."

"Why can't he? He's got everything he wants."

"Has he?"

Uncle Robert was smiling. And this time his smile was for himself. She didn't understand it.

vii

Anne was going away. She said she supposed now that Eliot would be happy.

Grandmamma Severn thought she had been long enough running loose with those Fielding boys. Grandpapa Everitt agreed with her and they decided that in September Anne should go to the big girls' college in Cheltenham. Grandmamma and Aunt Emily had left London and taken a house in Cheltenham and Anne was to live with them there.

Colin and she were going in the same week, Colin to his college and Anne to hers.

They were discussing this prospect. Colin and Jerrold and Anne in Colin's room. It was a chilly day in September and Colin was in bed surrounded by hot water bottles. He had tried to follow Jerrold in his big jump across the river and had fallen in. He was not ill, but he hoped he would be, for then he couldn't go back to Cheltenham next week.

"If it wasn't for the hot water bottles," he said, "I might get a chill."

"I wish I could get one," said Anne. "But I can't get anything. I'm so beastly strong."

"It isn't so bad for you. You haven't got to live with the girls. It'll be perfectly putrid in my house now that Jerrold isn't there."

"Haven't you any friends, Col-Col?"

"Yes. There's little Rogers. But even he's pretty rotten after Jerry."

"He would be."

"And that old ass Rawly says I'll be better this term without Jerrold. He kept on gassing about fighting your own battles and standing on your own feet. You never heard such stinking rot."

"You're lucky it's Cheltenham," Jerrold said, "and not some other rotten hole. Dad and I'll go over on half-holidays and take you out. You and Anne."

"You'll be at Cambridge."

"Not till next year. And it isn't as if Anne wasn't there."

"Grannie and Aunt Emily'll ask you every week. I've made them. It'll be a bit slow, but they're rather darlings."

"Have they a piano?" Colin asked.

"Yes. And they'll let you play on it all the time."

Colin looked happier. But he didn't get his chill, and when the day came he had to go.

Jerrold saw Anne off at Wyck station.

"You'll look after Col-Col, won't you?" he said. "Write and tell me how he gets on."

"I'll write every week."

Jerrold was thoughtful.

"After all, there's something in that idea of old Rawlings', that I'm bad for him. He's got to do without me."

"So have I."

"You're different. You'll stand it, if you've got to. Colin won't. And he doesn't chum up with the other chaps."

"No. But think of me and all those awful girls—after you and Eliot" (she had forgotten Eliot's sulkiness) "and Uncle Robert. And Grannie and Aunt Emily after Auntie Adeline."

"Well, I'm glad Col-Col'll have you sometimes."

"So'm I… Oh, Jerrold, here's the beastly train."

It drew up along the platform.

Anne stood in her carriage, leaning out of the window to him.

His hand was on the ledge. They looked at each other without speaking.

The guard whistled. Carriage doors slammed one after another. The train moved forward.

Jerrold ran alongside. "I say, you'll let Col-Col play on that piano?"

Anne was gone.