Anne promised to come again soon, and spoke of the arum lily beginning to unfold its flower, and then, passing through into the shop, asked for curry powder and sultanas.
When these had been given her, she hesitated, asking herself whether, after Mrs. Sotheby’s kindness, she could ask for drawing-pins. Perhaps Mr. Sotheby would fetch some from Linton, but at that moment she felt shy of asking a man who was building a row of cottages to execute her little commissions. She would wait until another day for that. But on the doorstep she paused:
“Thank you for being so kind to me. I shall always come and talk to you if I am upset by anything.”
The face behind the counter broke into hundreds of wrinkles, the little teeth shone, and a delighted laugh answered her. “Like pouring water out of a glass bottle,” thought Anne as she went out into the winter sunshine.
There was happiness, who could doubt it? The secret of life was to be like the Sothebys, and to work as they did, absorbed in building cottages. Would she ever think the prospect of scalding a pig too tempting to be refused, if she were over-worked already?
“Mr. Sotheby must be very enterprising,” she said to herself, trying to conquer her dislike for him, and forgot the grocer in gazing at the distant elms which bounded the far side of the village green a quarter of a mile away, for in the middle of the village was a long and lovely stretch of common pasture.
But who was the boy for whom Mr. Sotheby worked so hard? And Anne remembered that Maggie Pattle had once told her that the Sothebys had a son. Why was it that she had imagined that he was dead? But it did not occur to her to connect him with the photograph in the parlour, for she was looking at the elm trees, and listening to the song of a thrush; then gazing at the roof of Lambert’s barn, bathed in sunlight, she felt her heart beating happily, and asked herself why had she felt beauty was a prison? She could be happy in that village for ever, for spring was coming, and the birds were singing.
FOUR: THE TRAPEZE BOY
A hard frost came early in February.
“If this lasts,” said Mr. Dunnock eagerly, “we shall have skating the day after to-morrow,” but his face clouded quickly, and he put down his cup with a gesture of annoyance. The day after to-morrow would be Sunday.