Anne Severn and the Fieldings

by May Sinclair

XII

COLIN, JERROLD, AND ANNE

i

He went through the wide empty house, looking through all the rooms, trying to find some memory of the happiness he had had there long ago. The house was full of Anne. Anne's figure crossed the floors before him, her head turned over her shoulder to see if he were coming; her voice called to him from the doorways, her running feet sounded on the stairs. That was her place at the table; that was the armchair she used to curl up in; just there, on the landing, he had kissed her when he went to school.

They had given his mother's room to Maisie, and they had put his things into the room beyond, his father's room. Everything was in its place as it had been in his father's time, the great wardrobe, the white marble-topped washstand, the bed he had died on. He saw him lying there and Anne going to and fro between the washstand and the bed. The parrot curtains hung from the windows, straight and still.

Jerrold shuddered as he looked at these things.

They had thought that he would want to sleep in that room because he was married, because Maisie would have the room it led out of.

But he couldn't sleep in it. He couldn't stay in it a minute; he would never pass its door without that sickening pang of memory. He moved his things across the gallery into Anne's room.

He would sleep there; he would sleep in the white bed that Anne had slept in.

He told himself that he had to be near Colin; there was only the passage between and their doors could stand open; that was why he wanted to sleep there. But he knew that was not why. He wanted to sleep there because there was no other room where he could feel Anne so near him, where he could see her so clearly. When the dawn came she would be with him, sitting in her chair by the window. The window looked to the west, to Upper Speed and the Manor Farm house. The house was down there behind the trees, and somewhere there, jutting out above the porch, was the window of Anne's room.

He looked at his watch. One o'clock. At two he would go and see Anne.

ii

When Jerrold called at the Manor Farm house Anne was out. Old Ballinger came slouching up from the farmyard to tell him that Miss Anne had gone up to the Far Acres field to try the new tractor.

The Far Acres field lay at the western end of the estate. Jerrold followed her there. Five furrows, five bright brown bands on the sallow stubble, marked out the Far Acres into five plots. In the turning space at the top corner he saw Anne on her black horse and Colin standing beside her.

With a great clanking and clanging the new American, tractor struggled towards them up the hill, dragging its plough. It stopped and turned at the "headland" as Jerrold came up.

A clear, light wind blew over the hill and he felt a sudden happiness and excitement. He was beginning to take an interest in his land. He shouted:

"I say, Anne, you look like Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo."

"Oh, not Waterloo, I hope. I'm going to win my battle."

"Well, Marengo—Austerlitz—whatever battles he did win. Does Curtis understand that infernal thing?"

Young Curtis, sulky and stolid on his driver's seat, stared at his new master.

"Yes. He's been taught motor mechanics. He's quite good at it … If only he'd do what you tell him. Curtis, I said you were not to use those disc coulters for this field. I've had three smashed in two weeks. They're no earthly good for stony soil."

"Tis n' so bad 'ere as it is at the east end, miss."

"Well, we'll see. You can let her go now."

With a fearful grinding and clanking the tractor started. The revolving disc coulter cut the earth; the three great shares gripped it and turned it on one side. But the earth, instead of slanting off clear from the furrows, fell back again. Anne dismounted and ran after the tractor and stopped it.

"He hasn't got his plough set right," she said. "It's too deep in."

She stooped, and did something mysterious and efficient with a lever; the wheels dipped, raising the shares to their right level, and the tractor set off again. This time the earth parted clean from the furrows with the noise of surge, and three slanting, glistening waves ran the length of the field in the wake of the triple plough.

"Oh, Jerrold, look at those three lovely furrows. Look at the pace it goes. This field will be ploughed up in a day or two. Colin, aren't you pleased?"

The tractor was coming towards them, making a most horrible noise.

"No," he said, "I don't like the row it makes. Can't I go, now I've seen what the beastly thing can do?"

"Yes. You'd better go if you can't stand it."

Colin went with quick, desperate strides down the field away from the terrifying sound of the tractor.

They looked after him sorrowfully.

"He's not right yet. I don't think he'll ever be able to stand noises."

"You must give him time, Anne."

"Time? He's had three years. It's heart-breaking. I must just keep him out of the way of the tractors, that's all."

She mounted her horse and went riding up and down the field, abreast of the plough.

Jerrold waited for her at the gate of the field.

iii

It was Sunday evening between five and six.

Anne was in the house, in the great Jacobean room on the first floor. Barker had judged it too large and too dilapidated to live in, and it had been left empty in his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold had furnished it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor stretched along the walls, for Jerrold had given Eliot half of their father's books. This room would be too dilapidated to live in, and it had been left empty in his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold had furnished it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor stretched along the walls, for Jerrold had given Eliot half of their father's books. This room would be Eliot's library when he came down. It was now Anne's sitting-room.

The leaded windows were thrown open to the grey evening and a drizzling rain; but a fire blazed on the great hearth under the arch of the carved stone chimney-piece. Anne's couch was drawn up before it. She lay stretched out on it, tired with her week's work.

She was all alone in the house. The gardener and his wife went out together every Sunday to spend the evening with their families at Medlicote or Wyck. She was not sorry when they were gone; the stillness of the house rested her. But she missed Colin. Last Sunday he had been there, sitting beside her in his chair by the hearth, reading. Today he was with Jerrold at the Manor. The soft drizzle turned to a quick patter of rain; a curtain of rain fell, covering the grey fields between the farm and the Manor, cutting her off.

She was listening to the rain when she heard the click of the gate and feet on the garden path. They stopped on the flagstones under her window. Jerrold's voice called up to her.

"Anne—Anne, are you there? Can I come up?"

"Rather."

He came rushing up the stairs. He was in the room now.

"How nice of you to come on this beastly evening."

"That's why I came. I thought it would be so rotten for you all alone down here."

"What have you done with Colin?"

"Left him up there. He was making no end of a row on the piano."

"Oh Jerrold, if he's playing again he'll be all right."

"He didn't sound as if there was much the matter with him."

"You never can tell. He can't stand those tractors."

"We must keep him away from the beastly things. I suppose we've got to have 'em?"

"I'm afraid so. They save no end of labour, and labour's short and dear."

"Is that why you've been working yourself to death?"

"I haven't. Why, do I look dead?"

"No. Eliot told me. He saw you at it."

"I only take a hand at hay time and harvest. All the rest of the year it's just riding about and seeing that other people work. And Colin does half of that now."

"All the same, I think it's about time you stopped."

"But if I stop the whole thing'll stop. The men must have somebody over them."

"There's me."

"You don't know anything about farming, Jerry dear. You don't know a teg from a wether."

"I suppose I can learn if Colin's learnt. Or I can get another Barker."

"Not so easy. Don't you like my looking after your land, then? Aren't you pleased with me? I haven't done so badly, you know. Seven hundred acres."

"You've been simply splendid. I shall never forget what you've done. And I shall never forgive myself for letting you do it. I'd no idea what it meant."

"It's only meant that Colin's better and I've been happier than I ever thought I could have been."

"Happier? Weren't you happy then?"

She didn't answer. They were on dangerous ground. If they began talking about happiness—

"If I gave it up to-morrow," she said, "I should only go and work on another farm."

"Would you?"

"Jerrold—do you want me to go?"

"Want you?"

"Yes. You did once. At least, you wanted to get away from me."

"I didn't know what I was doing. If I had known I shouldn't have done it. I can't talk about that, Anne. It doesn't bear thinking about."

"No. But, Jerrold—tell me the truth. Do you want me to go because of
Colin?"

"Colin?"

"Yes. Because of what your mother told you?"

"How do you know what she told me?"

"She told Eliot."

"And he told you? Good God! what was he thinking of?"

"He thought it better for me to know it. It was better."

"How could it be?"

"I can't tell you…Jerrold, it isn't true."

"I know it isn't."

"But you thought it was."

"When did I think?"

"Then; when you came to see me."

"Did I?"

"Yes. And you're not going to lie about it now."

"Well, if I did I've paid for it."

(What did he mean? Paid for it? It was she who had paid.)

"When did you know it wasn't true?" she said.

"Three months after, when Eliot wrote and told me. It was too late then…. If only you'd told me at the time. Why didn't you?"

"But I didn't know you thought it. How could I know?"

"No. How could you? Who would have believed that things could have happened so damnably as that?"

"But it's all right now. Why did you say it was too late?"

"Because it was too late. I was married."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I lied when I told you it made no difference. It made that difference. If I hadn't thought that you and Colin were…if I hadn't thought that, I wouldn't have married Maisie. I'd have married you."

"Don't say that, Jerrold."

"Well—you asked for the truth, and there it is."

She got up and walked away from him to the window. He followed her there. She spread out her hands to the cold rain.

"It's raining still," she said.

He caught back her hands.

"Would you have married me?"

"Don't, Jerrold, don't. It's cruel of you."

He was holding her by her hands.

"Would you? Tell me. Tell me."

"Let go my hands, then."

He let them go. They turned back to the fireplace. Anne shivered. She held herself to the warmth.

"You haven't told me," he said.

"No, I haven't told you," she repeated, stupidly.

"That's because you would. That's because you love me. You do love me."

"I've always loved you."

She spoke as if from some far-off place; as if the eternity of her love removed her from him, put her beyond his reach.

"But—what's the good of talking about it?" she said.

"All the good in the world. We owed each other the truth. We know it now; we know where we are. We needn't humbug ourselves and each other any more. You see what comes of keeping back the truth. Look how we've had to pay for it. You and me. Would you rather go on thinking I didn't care for you?"

"No, Jerrold, no. I'm only wondering what we're to do next."

"Next?"

"Yes. That's why you want me to go away."

"It isn't. It's why I want you to stay. I want you to leave off working and do all the jolly things we used to do."

"You mustn't make me leave off working. It's my only chance."

They turned restlessly from the fireplace to the couch. They sat one at each end of it, still for a long time, without speaking. The fire died down. The evening darkened in the rain. The twilight came between them, poignant and disquieting, dimming their faces, making them strange and wonderful to each other. Their bodies loomed up through it, wonderful and strange. The high white stone chimney-piece glimmered like an arch into some inner place.

Outside, from the church below the farm house, the bell tinkled for service.

It ceased.

Suddenly they rose and he came towards her to take her in his arms. She beat down his hands and hung on them, keeping him off.

"Don't, Jerry, please, please don't hold me."

"Oh Anne, let me. You let me once. Don't you remember?"

"We can't now. We mustn't."

And yet she knew that it would happen in some time, in some way. But not now. Not like this.

"We mustn't."

"Don't you want me to take you in my arms?"

"No. Not that."

"What, then?" He pressed tighter.

"I want you not to hurt Maisie."

"It's too late to think of Maisie now."

"I'm not thinking of her. I'm thinking of you. You'll hurt yourself frightfully if you hurt her." She wrenched his hands apart and went from him to the door.

"What are you going to do?" he said.

"I'm going to fetch the lamp."

She left him standing there.

A few minutes later she came back carrying the lighted lamp. He took it from her and set it on the table.

"And now?"

"Now you're going back to Colin. And we're both going to be good…You do want to be good—don't you?"

"Yes. But I don't see how we're going to manage it."

"We could manage it if we didn't see each other. If I went away."

"Anne, you wouldn't. You can't mean that. I couldn't stand not seeing you. You couldn't stand it, either."

"I have stood it. I can stand it again."

"You can't. Not now. It's all different. I swear I'll be decent. I won't say another word if only you won't go."

"I don't see how I can very well. There's the land… No. Colin must look after that. I'll go when the ploughing's done. And some day you'll be glad I went."

"Go. Go. You'll find out then."

Their tenderness was over. Something hard and defiant had come in to them with the light. He was at the door now.

"And you'll come back," he said. "You'll see you'll come back."