A starling sits upon the chimney pot preening himself. A crow flies over the garden, glancing to right and left. The three yews are renewing their green in the sun, the laurels are shiny and clean. A rabbit hops out, looks round, and begins to nibble at the fresh grass, his last meal before he goes to bed.
All are one community, but it will not be for long. When the sun sucks up the dew and the moistness of the gossamer, everyone will be for himself again. Each bird will sing his own song, and not the song of the garden. “Me, me, me,” he will say, “I am the best.” And the nettles will whisper to each other, “You are me, you are me,” laurels, yews, box trees and brambles too. Even the beech tree who has won to his great height and who has no rival in fifteen miles, he, too, will be straining, straining higher to the sun. It is all the sun, who has not climbed high enough yet.
The back door opened and she came out, pausing a moment before shutting the door behind her. She was tall and dressed in red slippers, a dirty blue serge skirt, and a thin, stale mauve bodice. She was so graceful! Her skin was unhealthy-looking, dark and puffed, her mouth small, the lips red. Her hair, black and in disorder, tangled down to her eyebrows. Across one cheek a red scar curved. Her eyes, a dark brown and very large, had a light that burned.
She felt alive, and she could see that the yard was dead—yes, she was like that this morning.
She stepped out into the yard, slammed the door behind her, and swept through the weeds that sprinkled her with dew. One big bramble twined so amorously round her skirt that her legs could not tear themselves free, and she had to bend to tear him off superbly. All over at the contact of her hands he trembled, and trembled there for some time. She went to the pump which stood near the outhouse, and the rat fled down his hole. She worked the pump handle till it chugged up water for her which she splashed over her face, wetting her dress as well. She went to the hen coop, opened the door, and stood waiting. The cock walked sedately out the first and she hurried him up with her carpet slipper, laughing to see him flustered. Her voice was deep, and, of course, had a coarse note in it. And then she went back into the house, all wet, banging the back door behind her.
Snores, deep and thick, came down from an open window above into the yard.
The cock was angry and he watched his hens for a moment with a sense of humiliation, one claw stopped in mid-air. He did not know but he felt out of sorts. Not in actual ill-health but liverish. All the same, if there was anyone to look at him they would see a fine sheen to his feathers to-day. He cried out to attract attention, and Natacha, who was by his side, said duteously that his ruff was stupefying in its beauty, rivaling the sun with its brightness. After it was all over, leaving Natacha squawking, he fluttered up on to the top of the coop. He was feeling ambitious, in revolt, the world was all wrong somehow, too soft, not enough dust for a dust-bath. There was not even a dung-heap in this wretched yard. Everything was too soft—the sun, and the dew, and the gentle weeds. He wanted heat, heat. Between intervals of killing things on himself he stretched out his neck and told this to the world, and that he was king of this castle.
Joan upstairs is putting on her stockings. What a lot of holes there are in them, but no matter. Sunday to-day. How will Father take the church bells? Last Sunday he had not minded very much. It is going to be beautifully hot, and Father will hate that too, poor old thing. George hated the heat, only she loved it. The wonderful sun!
How red her hands are getting, and rough. That was the house-work, while nice, young, rich ladies kept theirs folded with gloves on, and they had coloured umbrellas to keep the sun off. To be frightened of the sun! Nice young ladies had never done a day’s work in their lives. Why should she work and they be idle? Oh, if she were like one of them! She would have light blue undies. Wouldn’t she look a dream in the glass! And stays? No, no stays. But perhaps, they must fortify you so.