She would say: ‘Thank you, dear; you’re as strong as a lion!’ trying to keep that displeasure from her voice.
Very protective and careful was Stephen when she and her mother were out alone together. Not all her queer shyness could prevent her protecting, nor could Anna’s own shyness save her from protection. She was forced to submit to a quiet supervision that was painstaking, gentle but extremely persistent. And yet was this love? Anna often wondered. It was not, she felt sure, the trusting devotion that Stephen had always felt for her father; it was more like a sort of instinctive admiration, coupled with a large, patient kindness.
‘If she’d only talk to me as she talks to Philip, I might get to understand her,’ Anna would muse, ‘It’s so odd not to know what she’s feeling and thinking, to suspect that something’s always being kept in the background.’
Their drives home from Malvern were usually silent, for Stephen would feel that her task was accomplished, her mother no longer needing her protection now that the coachman had the care of them both—he, and the arrogant-looking grey cobs that were yet so mannerly and gentle. As for Anna, she would sigh and lean back in her corner, weary of trying to make conversation. She would wonder if Stephen were tired or just sulky, or if, after all, the child might be stupid. Ought she, perhaps, to feel sorry for the child? She could never quite make up her mind.
Meanwhile, Stephen, enjoying the comfortable brougham, would begin to indulge in kaleidoscopic musings, those musings that belong to the end of the day, and occasionally visit children. Mrs. Thompson’s bent spine, it looked like a bow—not a rainbow but one of the archery kind; if you stretched a tight string from her feet to her head, could you shoot straight with Mrs. Thompson? China dogs—they had nice china dogs at Langley’s—that made you think of someone; oh, yes, of course, Collins—Collins and a cottage with red china dogs. But you tried not to think about Collins! There was such a queer light slanting over the hills, a kind of gold glory, and it made you feel sorry—why should a gold glory make you feel sorry when it shone that way on the hills? Rice pudding, almost as bad as tapioca—not quite though, because it was not so slimy—tapioca evaded your efforts to chew it, it felt horrid, like biting down on your own gum. The lanes smelt of wetness, a wonderful smell! Yet when Nanny washed things they only smelt soapy—but then, of course, God washed the world without soap; being God, perhaps He didn’t need any—you needed a lot, especially for hands—did God wash His hands without soap? Mother, talking about calves and babies, and looking like the Virgin Mary in church, the one in the stained-glass window with Jesus, which reminded you of Church Street, not a bad place after all; Church Street was really rather exciting—what fun it must be for men to have hats that they could take off, instead of just smiling—a bowler must be much more fun than a Leghorn—you couldn’t take that off to Mother—
The brougham would roll smoothly along the white road, between stout leafy hedges starred with dog-roses; blackbirds and thrushes would be singing loudly, so loudly that Stephen could hear their voices above the quick clip, clip, of the cobs and the muffled sounds of the carriage. Then from under her brows she must glance across at Anna, who she knew loved the songs of blackbirds and thrushes; but Anna’s face would be hidden in shadow, while her hands lay placidly folded.
And now the horses, nearing their stables, would redouble their efforts as they swung through the gates, the tall, iron gates of the parklands of Morton, faithful gates that had always meant home. Old trees would fly past, then the paddocks with their cattle—Worcestershire cattle with uncanny white faces; then the two quiet lakes where the swans reared their cygnets; then the lawns, and at last the wide curve in the drive, near the house, that would lead to the massive entrance.
The child was too young to know why the beauty of Morton would bring a lump to her throat when seen thus in the gold haze of late afternoon, with its thoughts of evening upon it. She would want to cry out in a kind of protest that was very near tears: ‘Stop it—stop it, you’re hurting!’ But instead she would blink hard and shut her lips tightly, unhappy yet happy. It was a queer feeling; it was too big for Stephen, who was still rather little when it came to affairs of the spirit. For the spirit of Morton would be part of her then, and would always remain somewhere deep down within her, aloof and untouched by the years that must follow, by the stress and the ugliness of life. In those after-years certain scents would evoke it—the scent of damp rushes growing by water; the kind, slightly milky odour of cattle; the smell of dried roseleaves and orris-root and violets, that together with a vague suggestion of beeswax always hung about Anna’s rooms. Then that part of Stephen that she still shared with Morton would know what it was to feel terribly lonely, like a soul that wakes up to find itself wandering, unwanted, between the spheres.
4
Anna and Stephen would take off their coats, and go to the study in search of Sir Philip who would usually be there waiting.