To the Dark Tower (21 page)

MY DEAREST SHIRLEY,—I always find it easier to write than to say things.

In case you misunderstood me this morning, I meant only that I was sorry for my behaviour and wished that we could be friends once more.

May we?

E. T.

As she read it Shirley found her face growing hot and cold. Each of these incidents disquieted her profoundly. But she could not tell for what reason. Something was wrong, it was all jerking out of control. She knew this, but was powerless to stop it.

This life which had seemed so fertile in promise was a disappointment. She felt its emptiness each morning as she and two other mistresses wrangled over who should go into the bathroom first. In chapel she felt it, and when she sat at the top of a long table at meals, and heard, rising and ebbing around her, the chatter of twenty shrill voices. It was nothing, nothing; and she was nothing, a shell, a husk.

Each incident with Miss Tree intensified this feeling to an unbearable degree. We are damned, she thought, we are doomed. We hunger for life, but it evades us. We are gesticulating shadows. We are Homer’s ghosts, who long to drink the blood of the living. But there is no blood to drink, and we wander, interminably.

One little happening, of no ostensible importance, disquieted her more than all others. It was customary for her and Miss Tree to change over their French classes half-way through the lesson, so that Shirley could do the oral training and Miss Tree could manage the literature.

One morning Miss Tree was late. Shirley, arriving at the classroom, could still hear her talking to the class. The voice rattled dryly, and for no reason, instead of going in she stood outside and listened, her mark-book under her arm.

Miss Tree was doing unseen translation. "Now, girls," she was saying. "What does this word mean?
Mamelon. Roland est venu au mamelon
. Who knows?" Someone said mammal, someone suggested house. "Wrong, wrong!" Miss Tree snapped. "Well—who knows the word
mamelle
?" No answer. "Oh, come, come!
Mamelle
means a breast. You must all know that. And from
mamelle
we get this word
mamelon
." She went to the blackboard. "Look!" With a quick stroke of the chalk she drew in a breast, with nipple "Now! There’s a breast. Well—what does it remind you of? ... A hill, of course! A hill!"

The duster erased the diagram. The class was over.

An intonation, an emphasis—what was it that made the whole scene intolerable?

Part of the summer holidays were spent with Doris in Norfolk. Mrs. Humber had been the daughter of a country parson and had married a farmer. The farmer was now dead; but with the help of a half-wit girl she still kept hens, some goats, and a small market-garden. Many of the fields had been let out; others were derelict, a place to pick blackberries in. Once the land had been good; but it had been overworked, nothing had been put back, and now it was sour and unproductive. The house itself leaked upstairs; the top landing had been closed and there were damp patches on the walls. Grass pressed between the paving of the drive; many of the stones were cracked.

Mrs. Humber was as upright as when she had first ridden to hounds as a girl. But her whole life, all that lay behind that splendid carriage, had been devoured by one grievance. After her marriage the gentry had ceased to ‘know’ her: and even now, with her husband buried, she was still ignored. This was an intolerable burden, a cruel infliction of loneliness; for she herself, in turn, refused to know the market-gardeners and small tradesmen who had been her husband’s friends.

But Doris fraternised with all of them. When her mother said of one young man: "Isn’t he rather C.O.M.?" (which was her way of saying ‘common’), Doris flashed back: "He’s as good as father ever was." This made Mrs. Humber’s eyes fill with tears—of rage, rather than repentance.

Shirley was no more of a snob than Doris. But from lack of practice she found it difficult to make conversation to the country-folk. Mrs. Humber took this disability as a form of breeding. Shirley, she privately noted, was a ‘lady’. So dinner was substituted for high-tea, and the boiler was lit for baths nightly instead of once a week, and the Crown Derby tea-service, which she had brought with her from the vicarage over thirty years ago and had hardly used since, was now taken out for the half-wit girl to chip when she washed it up.

She never tired of asking Shirley about her English relations: and when she was not doing this she talked of her own. In the house were a few ‘pieces’ left to her by an aunt. It was plain, solid Victorian furniture: but Mrs. Humber would say: "Yes, Aunt Sophie had some lovely things. You can tell from those few heirlooms of mine. Sad to think of it all broken up among a dozen of us. In her big house ..."

For a long time she would brood in this manner on a remote, and perhaps non-existent, past. Then the hens would have to be fed or the goats would have to be milked, and with a gesture that said, "And now look what I’ve come to", she would stride out, her lean arms clasped under her breast.

They were waiting for the bus that was to take them to a cinema, and the shops, and tea at the "Copper Kettle". Shirley stood out on the road while Doris, who had a stone in her shoe, had retreated behind a tree to remove it. Perhaps her sense of decorum was too much developed; perhaps she was ashamed of her feet, which were large and had bunions from squeezing them into narrow fittings.

The bus was late, as it always was on Saturday. "Is it coming?" Doris asked, dusting her foot with the palm of her hand. "Oh, do stop it if it is. Ask them to wait"

"No sign yet."

A mile away the bus had stopped while the driver got off his seat and collected fares. But they were not to know that.

At the brow of the hill before them something moved, there was a distant rumble. "Oh, look!" Shirley exclaimed, expecting the familiar green and red to appear.

Now it so happened that at the moment she said, "Oh, look!" a man was passing on a bicycle. Doris being screened by her tree he imagined that he was being addressed. "Yes?" he said, braking sharply. "Yes?"

Shirley shook her head. "Nothing," she murmured. "Nothing. Just that." A lorry drove past them.

He went on; but half-way down the hill he got off his bicycle and began to wheel it back. "I’m sure you said something," he protested. "I could have sworn——" He grinned at her, a man of about forty-five, swarthy, with light-blue eyes and an open-necked shirt.

At that moment Doris appeared, hopping, with her bare foot raised in the air. "My friend was talking to me," she cut in. "Please go away. You know it was not to you she was speaking."

The man coloured, mounted his bicycle, and rode off, his alpaca coat flapping behind him.

"Oh, Doris!" Shirley protested.

"That’s the way to deal with them," Doris said, in high spirits. "Upon my soul! Thought he was going to get off with you!"

But: "Oh, Doris!" Shirley protested again.

Shirley took the goats out to pasture. They were aristocratic, blue-lipped creatures; white Saanens, whose muzzles tapered delicately into a point. As they moved forward their udders swung from side to side between bow-legs. Their bellies were distended with clover hay, giving them an appearance of pregnancy. Shirley had two of them with her, and, not being used to their management, her progress was slow. When she pulled they decided to stop, their teeth wrenching at nettles, thistles, and elder. But as soon as she stood still they dragged her sideways, across the road, to some more succulent pasture. She cursed them silently.

They were Mrs. Humber’s pets, to whom fresh white bread was given and apples and dough-cakes. They must not be hurried or bullied or in any way crossed. She talked to them as one would to an infant. When one of them butted, she said: "Oh, darling, that wasn’t at all nice. No, really..." But if the person who had been butted attempted to punish the animal, she protested: "Oh, don’t do that. You’ll hurt her. Oh, please don’t."

The turquoise eyes seemed to glint at Shirley maliciously; the horns arched back; delicate white hooves stepped between horse-dung. Shirley pulled breathlessly. "Oh, come on!" she pleaded aloud. "Oh, do come on!" Her hands were red with tugging at the heavy chains. Then: "Oh, very well." She gave in, she abdicated. They could move when they wished to. She stood by them as they gobbled cow-parsley. As though the Day of Judgment were upon them, she thought; not a moment lost. One of them choked, coughed, and broke wind. Shirley tried to pull them on, away from the aroma. But it could not be done. In their own time...

Moonily, she looked about her. In one of the fields that Mrs. Humber let out they had already cut the oats and were now carting them away. The horse stamped dust upwards into the still air. Two men were working, not very expertly, stripped to the waist. Could it be ...? She screwed up her eyes, staring. Could it? But, before she could decide, with one accord both goats jerked forward: the chains were tugged from her hands; they were loose and away. With the sagacity of their species they made immediately for an uncut field of corn on their right and began to plough through it, tugging at random at the heavy ears. "Come back!" Shirley shouted. "Come back! Betty! Phyllis! Come back!" She ran after them. But the animals veered away, with lowered horns and cries of rage or triumph. She was trampling the corn and they were trampling it. "Oh, dear," she said aloud. "Oh dear, oh dear."

"Don’t worry. I’ll catch them."

She shot round to find herself facing the man she had encountered when waiting for the bus. She had been right. It was he who was working with the cart in the other field. He again grinned, impressing her with that strange contrast of dark hair and light-blue eyes. He was badly sunburned, his shoulders peeling and white with calamine lotion. The hair on his chest gleamed with sweat.

Then began a lengthy pursuit, a series of ambushes, stealthy tracking. Shirley helped as best she could. But the sight of Mrs. Humber’s corn filled her with fatalistic pessimism. Another hour—and what would have become of it? Would it all be trampled to nothing?

A yell of triumph, a boyish "Hoorah!" greeted her. The animals were trapped against a wall of brambles. With lowered heads they charged, but neatly he caught one and then the other by the horns. Though in actual practice an easy enough task, this final piece of bravado filled Shirley with admiration. She clapped her hands. "Oh, splendid!" she cried. "Oh, splendid!"

He brought the animals back to her. "They haven’t done much damage. But goodness—what a chase! I’m not used to all that exercise." Down his face poured sweat.

She took the animals from him. "Thank you. Thank you so much. It really was most good of you."

"I’m afraid I didn’t have a chance of introducing myself before. My name’s Petrel—Claude Petrel." He spoke with the unnatural bluffness of so many schoolmasters. One can almost hear them saying: "Now come on, boys! This is fun. Wake up, all of you." His voice had the same ring, as though a coin were being thrown down defiantly.

"I’m Shirley Forsdike."

"Yes, Miss Forsdike. We’ve met once before, I think." Was he being malicious? The light-blue eyes turned innocently on her. "I am afraid—rather a
faux pas
on my part... I thought ..."

"My friend was very rude."

"She was protecting your honour."

She moved on a little with the goats to a clump of nettles. As she did so she scrutinised him, wondering who he was and where he had come from. He was certainly not a farmer, she decided. His corduroys were too sleek; his hands, though dirty at the nails, too well kept.

"I’m staying here on holiday," she said.

"So am I—with my brood."

"Your brood?"

"My children. I have five of them. Quite a handful. I’m sure you must have seen them—or heard them—already. "We’re at Ash Farm... Do you like children?"

"Very much."

"Then you must come and see mine. I think they’re perfect."

"I should love to."

"Good." He scratched his chest with a dry, scraping sound. "Where do you live?"

"Opposite. With Mrs. Humber. Just over there."

"May I ring you up?"

"We have no telephone. Mrs. Humber hates them."

"No telephone!" He seemed shocked, as though at some indecency.

"Oh, never mind. I’ll send one of the children round with a note."

"Thank you."

He returned to the cart and began once more to toss up the sheaves. From a gap in the hedge where she could not be seen she watched him for a long time, her eyes aching in the glare. The white animals cropped grass around her with sudden tugs. He worked with extraordinary zest—frenzy it seemed—tossing one sheaf after another; but there was no co-ordination. Then he stopped and wiped the sweat off his forehead. His body gleamed.

Outside the village store five children took it in turns to ride on a bicycle. The bicycle was too big: they had to stand up, the bar between their legs. Shirley passed them with a bag of apples she had just bought, and then turned back. The dark complexion and the light-blue eyes—she could not mistake the features.

"Hullo," she said.

"Hullo." With the absorption of children they took little notice of her. They were squabbling over whose turn it was to ride the bicycle. Their voices were shrill and clear; the arms with which they snatched at it, sinewy.

"What are your names?" she asked.

Visibly they drew into an arrogant little phalanx. "We’re all Petrels," one of them said.

"I’m Miss Forsdike."

The eldest boy stared at her and then came forward. "I think I’ve got a note for you."

"For me? Oh, thank you."

"Do you want to see it? It’s days old. Father gave it to me, and I forgot."

Shirley bridled. "Certainly I should like to see it."

The boy began to fumble in his trousers pockets, producing string, sweet-papers, nuts, and eventually a soiled scrap of paper.

It was an invitation to tea—four days ago.

Ash Farm had been taken over by a young man from Cambridge and ‘renovated’. This meant that the old fireplaces had been bricked in and tiles replaced them; a flush-closet was now used instead of the shed behind the kitchen; and the walls were distempered a hygienic white. Similar changes were perceptible on the farm itself—tractors instead of horses, laundered smocks for milking, a battery for the hens.