Mr. Dunnock did not make any reference to his visitor, though he was less abstracted than usual, asking Anne with great solicitude about her headache, and then saying: “I have been feeling a little more melancholy than usual to-day because of the bad weather, and so I took down Burton. In his anatomy he has much to say about the effect of food. The authorities all agree that beef is only safe for those who lead an active life; that pork is definitely bad for the reasoning man; that goats’ flesh disposes those who partake of it to evil-living; venison is most strongly condemned, and even horse-flesh is held to account for the well-known melancholy of your Spaniard; among vegetables the onion and its congeners, and I am glad to say the cabbage, are absolutely condemned; peas and beans should be avoided as far as possible, and salads and fruit only taken in the strictest moderation. Burton thinks that the potato may be a safe article of diet, and highly recommends borage.”
Anne was smiling at her father’s enthusiasm. “There seems very little for you to eat,” she said.
“Well, Anne, I do not know quite what Burton would recommend; he says nothing against wheaten bread; he regards fresh country cheese as wholesome, and speaks with enthusiasm of beer.” Mr. Dunnock giggled as he said this and for some reason that familiar clerical sound seemed to his daughter at that moment to express all that she most hated and despised. “The giggle is unforgivable,” she said to herself gazing at her father over the tea table. “He is a grown-up man; he has a beard; he is my father, but if beer is mentioned one hears a silly adolescent giggle. One would think that he was a choir boy caught with a cigarette.”
She left the table and went out into the garden in a fury; she had forgotten her own embarrassment when Richard had used the word “rape.”
Mr. Dunnock, absorbed in his own thoughts, hardly looked after her.
“Beer,” he said, pouring himself out a fourth cup of tea, and giggling slightly. “Good stuff, beer. He thought that because his name was Burton,” and Mr. Dunnock began to wonder if Robert Burton had really come from Burton-on-Trent, and if beer had always been brewed there.
“I forgot to tell you,” he said to Anne at supper, “that I had a visit this afternoon from Richard Sotheby, the son of our grocer. It was a great pity that you had a headache, for we do not have many interesting visitors. I think he is charming: a most delightful, most intelligent young man. But you should have told me that you had met him; you should have asked him to tea, and have introduced him to me. It was too bad, Anne, to have kept him to yourself.”
Anne gasped with astonishment and, not knowing what to reply, waited until her father went on: “He seems to have liked you very much; you have made quite a conquest,” and Mr. Dunnock smiled his peculiar little smile which showed that he was not speaking seriously.
“I thought you rather disapproved of the Sothebys,” said Anne. “Because, of course, they are Nonconformists.”
“Well, well,” said her father, wrinkling up his face at the word, for it set his teeth on edge like the thought of sour fruit. “Well, well, I suppose they are happy with their little ugly worship; I confess their outlook is repugnant to me. But the son has escaped from all that. He told me he has been to visit Little Gidding, and asked me a number of questions about Nicholas Ferrar’s community. Apparently he is greatly interested in the antiquities of the county.”