‘I’ve finished,’ said Helen.
Legs had one thump more.
‘So have I,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it ripping?’
JULY
HELEN has gone to church, after several scathing remarks about Sabbath-breakers, by whom she means me, and probably also Legs, as I hear the piano being played indoors. As a matter of fact, I have not the slightest intention of breaking anything—though Legs seems to have designs on the strings—for even here under the trees on the lawn it is far too hot to think of such a thing. Several slightly disappointed dogs repose round me, who hoped that perhaps, as I was not going to church, I was going for a walk. This afternoon, I am afraid, they will be disappointed again, for I propose to go to afternoon service in the cathedral, and they will think I am going for a walk. But on Sunday dogs have to pay for the commissions and omissions of the week.
The bells have stopped, so Helen will quite certainly be late, and the silence of Sunday morning in the country grows a shade deeper. Fifi just now, with an air of grim determination, sat up to scratch herself; but she could not be bothered, and sank down again in collapse on the grass. Legs, too, has apparently found the heat too much even for him, and has stopped playing. And I abandoned myself to that luxury which can only be really enjoyed on Sunday morning, when other people have gone to church (I wish to state again that I am going this afternoon), of thinking of all the things I ought to do, and not doing them. On Monday and Tuesday, and all through the week, in fact, you can indulge in that same pursuit, but it lacks aroma: it is without bouquet. But give me a chair under a tree on Sunday morning, and let my wife call me names for sitting in it, and then let the church-bells stop. Fifi wants washing. Legs said so yesterday, and we meant to wash her this morning. I must carefully avoid the subject if he comes out, since I don’t intend to do so. Then I ought to write to the Secretary of State—having first ascertained who he is—to remind him that Legs is going up for his Foreign Office examination in November, and that his (the Secretary of State’s) predecessor in the late Government promised him a nomination. How tiresome these changes of Government are! One would have thought the Conservatives might have held on till Legs’ examination. Then I should not (1) have to consult Whitaker to find out who the present Secretary of State is, and (2) write to him, and—probably—(3) find that either I haven’t got a Whitaker, or else that it is an old one. This will entail expense as well.
How the silence grew! I could not even hear any bees buzz among the flower-beds, and wondered whether bees do no work on Sunday. There was not a sound or murmur of them. Probably this is quite a new fact in natural history, which has never struck anybody before. It would never have struck me if I had gone to church. Then Fifi pricked one ear, sat up, and snapped at something. It was a winged thing, with a brown body, rather like a bee. How indescribably futile!
Then there came a little puff of wind from the end of the garden, and next moment the whole air was redolent with the scent of sweet-peas. Sweet-peas! How strangely, vastly more intimate is the sense of smell than any other! How at one whiff of odour the whole romance of life, its beautiful joys and scarcely less beautiful sorrows, the dust and struggle and the glory of it, rises up, clad not in the grey robes, or standing in the dim light of the past, but living, moving, breathing—part of the past, perhaps, but more truly part of the present. Like a huge wave from the immortal sea of life, cool and green, and speaking of the eternal depths, yet exulting in sunshine and rainbow-hued in spray, all the memories entwined about this house held and enveloped me. Here lived once Dick and Margery, those perfect friends; here, when they had passed to their triumphant peace, came she whom, when I first saw her, I thought to be Margery. From this house (where still in memory of Margery we plant the long avenue of sweet-peas, because she loved them) two years ago we were married, and here I sit now drowned in the beautiful past that is all so essential a part of this beautiful present.
But it would be as well, perhaps, if this book is to be in the slightest degree intelligible (a thing which I maintain is a merit rather than a defect), to put together a few simple facts concerning these last two years.
It was two years ago last April that we were married, and took a small house in town, though we still spent a good deal of time down here with Helen’s father. But before the year was out he died, leaving everything to Helen, who was his only child. So, as was natural, we continued to live in the house which was so dear to both of us.