I
Wilson was not the only one who was subject to irrational impulses on this particular day. It was a day of mild tumult and confusion with vagrant clouds scurrying formlessly across the sky, the wind fractious, stirring the litter beneath the trees in the parks, rippling the surface of the water in the ponds, making the pigeons ruff up their feathers. The promise of spring unleashed many impatient, elusive longings in people as different as Spencer, Sukie Price and Ralph Kimberley.
Spencer was primarily conscious of the ache in his limbs and the less specific but more painful ache in the centre of his being which aroused a hatred for this season of renewal when everything except Spencer would blossom and flourish. He thought back over the long years stretching away with very few green memories to soften their lean harshness. He was not helped by the sight of Wilson striding out in what looked like a new jacket. Wilson was on his way to break the news about his record to his editor, but Spencer did not know this; he noticed only the ease of the long limbs which did not know the cramping pains of rheumatism, the arrogant carriage of the head which had not yet acknowledged failure.
Sukie Price was more fortunate. She found God in the pale gleam of sunlight on the bare branches of the tree outside her window, in the complacency of the fat blackbird enjoying the motion of a branch swayed by the wind, in the sleek contentment of a ginger cat curled up on a cushion which someone had thrown out in the yard. She was sufficiently moved by all this to say grace aloud at breakfast. Her brother used the four-letter word for the third time and her father said: ‘What did I say?’ and hit him across the mouth. Sid retired to the hall from where he said that the church made him sick and the things that went on inside the church hall made him even more sick.
‘I’m not going back no more,’ he informed his father from the comparative safety of the half-landing. ‘Ordered about by a yellow bastard like that who hasn’t the guts to stand up for hisself with another fellow and then tumbles the vicar’s niece when he thinks no one’s looking.’
‘That’ll give you something else to pray about,’ Sukie’s father said to her. ‘Give us a rest.’
Ralph had found rest of a kind, too; a strange, hushed pause during which he seemed to stand at the crossroads and the path which he had long sought lay before him, narrow, rough-hewn, spiralling into unknown territory. The moment was so tremendous as to be almost beyond belief. There was a quality of unreality which he had not anticipated: good news, it seemed, could have the same effect as bad news, something in oneself was unready to receive it and the result was a momentary numbness. As he got out of Pym’s car in East Acton and waited to cross Western Avenue, he was afraid that the whole thing might be a mirage of the mind. And yet, a few minutes earlier, Pym had said:
‘I don’t know what your next venture is, Vicar; but I’ve heard there’s a list of people to be picked up and your name is high on it.’
‘Is that so? Thank you, Pym; thank you very much.’
Later, Pym said to his wife: ‘Anyone would have thought I’d told him he’d won the pools.’
As Ralph walked towards Frank Godfrey’s bookshop his heart was beginning to thump with excitement, and by the time that Frank opened the door of the flat above the shop, Ralph felt that the news of his election must shine from his face. Frank, however, was concerned only with prosaic apologies because he was washing-up for his wife who was serving in the shop. To Ralph’s ‘What a wonderful day!’ he responded by blinking cautiously down the stairs into the street, like some forest animal awakened from hibernation. ‘Still sharpish, though.’ He closed the door hurriedly and led Ralph into the sitting-room.
It was a box of a room which Ralph, being stockily built and energetic, always found uncomfortable. Today, when joy made him more expansive than ever, the limitations of the room were particularly exasperating. Communication was difficult, too. From the next room came the sound of scales being played on a violin, which indicated that the youngest Godfrey was at home; while outside a bus changed gear and the whole room shuddered. Ralph, wanting the right moment to share his news, waited for some semblance of peace.
‘A dreadful noise, but we have to endure it,’ Frank said, untying the strings of the apron which he wore round his waist and indicating a chair to Ralph. Whether he was referring to the violin or to the bus, was not clear. Ralph, despairing of a peaceful moment, said:
‘Pym has just told me . . .’
But Frank was speaking again.
‘I suppose you want to hear about the meeting last night? They were sorry you couldn’t be there, but delighted to know that you are prepared to lead the onslaught at the B camp . . .’
‘Pym has been warning me . . .’
‘Yes; we gathered that sentences were likely to be severe.’ Frank sat down, slowly, as though his limbs no longer had any spring in them. ‘And I suppose that this time we must expect to be arrested . . .’
‘Inevitable. Quite inevitable!’
Ralph sounded exultant; his face was that of a man on the threshold of victory.
‘What will you do about the shop?’ he asked. ‘Your wife won’t be able to manage alone, will she?’
After a pause, during which the violin scraped agonizingly, Frank answered:
‘My eldest son will help her.’
‘But after he has gone to Oxford, what then?’
‘There won’t be the money for that now.’
Ralph, who had spent the happiest years of his life in the stone- sequestered tranquillity of Oxford, was shocked.
‘Someone will look after that, I’m sure.’
‘I doubt it. Why should others pay so that I can go to prison in comfort?’
‘But your son?’
‘He says that he will study in his spare time; he prefers it that way.’
He took off his glasses and wiped them, his head averted to hide the pain in his eyes. He himself had studied in his spare time and he knew that it meant slogging without the richer rewards of learning. The mind needed leisure in which to expand: he had wanted to make that gift to his son.
‘I hope I’m doing the right thing.’
He was not a man who normally took much pride in his possessions; yet now, as he adjusted his glasses, he looked round the rather commonplace room, his eyes lingering lovingly on its meagre comforts.
‘One’s own contribution seems so small,’ he muttered.
So Frank was looking for a way out! Ralph was obscurely elated. Frank’s weakness made him more aware of his own strength. He felt a great compassion for the older man. He had sometimes wondered whether Frank might not be a saint, in spite of his lack of belief; but now, looking at the strained face, he was conscious only of human frailty at its furthest extreme. This surely was not what was meant by being called to be a saint? The acceptance of a burden that seemed too heavy; the courage that carried a man through with nothing left to spare, no breath for joy, no pulse to sing in the blood; to reach the summit at the last gasp, with eyes too dim to glimpse the splendours for which the effort had been made: this was too utterly grim a thing to be confused with sanctity; this, surely, was the terror of the man who has pushed himself too far.
‘You have played your part,’ he said. ‘You should rest now.’
‘I’m not an actor.’
‘You’re a pioneer.’ Ralph was surprised how much it mattered to him to convince Frank that he was no longer the man for the task. ‘You’ve shown that there is a way through the jungle and now you must leave it to others . . .’
‘What nonsense! Spare me your oratory, Ralph. I am a simple man with one belief to which I have endeavoured to be true all my life. Don’t try to persuade me to desert now.’
He had been a conscientious objector in the first world war; while other men fought and died, he had been in prison. It hadn’t been pleasant, but it had been safe and he had been spared things which he was never quite sure that he could have faced. He dared not now desert from his own chosen battlefield. He looked at Ralph’s face, so fine and calm and confident; a faint hostility which he could not overcome made him probe for weakness.
‘You have problems which are probably greater than mine,’ he pointed out. ‘You will be worrying about things in your parish, afraid that mistakes will be made that only you could put right. Perhaps asking yourself whether, with your vocation . . .’
‘I doubt whether I am cut out for work as a parish priest,’ Ralph cut in quickly. ‘There are times when I would gladly stand aside and let someone else cope with Rutledge, Spencer, and the vexed question of the Benedicite.’ He paused and listened for a moment to the screeching of the violin; perhaps it touched a nerve, for a shadow crossed his face.
‘At least you will have carried out your Easter duties,’ Frank said. ‘It’s a good thing it was fixed for Easter Monday.’
A bus rumbled by; Ralph waited until it had passed before he answered:
‘You know, Frank, I hate Good Friday. I have never been able to tell anyone quite how much I hate it. I suppose it is partly that the church is so bare all through Lent and the whole thing culminates—culminate isn’t the right word, too positive, disintegrates is better—in this appalling purple gloom. I must confess that on Good Friday I come near to understanding the utter desolation of those men who thought that the whole thing must be written off as a tragic error of judgement. Sometimes I have wished I might catch chicken pox, or some other absurd ailment, from Sarah so that I would not have to take the three-hour service.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be easy?’
There was a tartness in Frank’s tone which Ralph did not notice; he was thinking that this time it would be easier because release would be near. He felt the relief in his body, a relaxation of the muscles that made him feel momentarily light-headed as though he had slipped a mental anchor and were floating away.
Frank, watching him, thought how hard it was to see another man in his prime, experiencing the winged exultation of the climber as he nears the peak, when you yourself experienced only the weariness of growing old, the body less willing to carry you through the slow days, the spirit longing for rest. He found himself asking: How will it be with you when life has disciplined you, when the task ahead is harder than anything you thought could be asked of you—how much courage will you have then? He got to his feet, hating himself but unable to control regret and envy.
‘I must finish the washing-up and get down to the shop.’
‘And I must get along to Jill’s. I’m having tea at her flat this afternoon—she has a day’s leave.’
Ralph was eager to talk to Jill; he had not seen her for some time and there was a lot to tell her. She would be an enthusiastic listener; more than that, her understanding would give an added radiance to his joy. He could not, however, quite rid himself of the desire to make Frank stand aside.
‘If you decide not to come, no one will blame you,’ he said as they went down the stairs. ‘How could they blame you, with your record?’
‘It’s quite essential for me to be there,’ Frank retorted. ‘For one thing, if anything happens to you, I am supposed to take over the organizing part of it.’
They parted a little cross with one another. As Frank went back to the flat, he was remembering Ralph’s face: the face of a man who believes that he has been granted some kind of release. But release from what? Could it be from the shadow that had dimmed his brightness when he spoke of the three-hour service? Frank was not himself a Christian, but he could understand that perhaps the hardest thing which Christ had asked of his followers was to watch with Him during those dark hours. The flat had become chill and Frank felt very lonely. He no longer envied Ralph. Glorious though his vision might be at this moment, it seemed to Frank that there was a sunset quality about it.
II
Jill was on the telephone in the hall when Ralph arrived; she had a pile of frocks over one arm and she looked at her most disorganized.
‘Oh, Ralph! Do come in.’
She sounded as though she had not been expecting him. ‘I can’t stay,’ she said into the telephone. ‘A friend has come.’ She sounded secretive about it, and there was an amused, slightly provocative smile on her lips as though she anticipated that the statement would be disturbing to the hearer. Ralph guessed that she was talking to a boy friend. He remembered that Myra had said that she had been leading quite a gay life lately; he had not paid much attention then, but now he thought to himself, Jill is growing up. She waved him towards the sitting-room. As he turned away, she was saying: ‘Now, don’t be silly. Jack!’ in a voice which did not discourage silliness.
Ralph regarded the sitting-room in dismay. Usually when he came there was a great deal of bustle and activity in the kitchen; she liked to experiment with new recipes and he was a tolerant victim. This time, the activity had transferred itself to the sitting- room; never tidy at the best of times, it now looked like the church hall at the peak of a rummage sale; skirts, frocks and assorted underwear heaped on the chairs and settee, shoes ranged on the mantelpiece, a pair of shorts and an anorak dumped on the table, and a badminton racket and other sporting odds and ends arranged on the floor like obstacles in a race.
‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ Jill said when she joined him. She was wearing a voluminous black sweater and bright tartan jeans. It was, Ralph thought, a rather repulsive outfit and yet, as he watched her stepping between the piled obstacles on the floor, he was more conscious than ever before of her femininity.
‘I’m going home for the week-end,’ she explained, stepping over an open suitcase and clearing one armchair.
‘You must be expecting remarkably fine weather,’ he murmured, eyeing the cotton frocks.
‘I have to sort things out for when I go abroad.’ There was something a little evasive in her manner.
‘Your character must be undergoing an interesting transformation.’ He lowered himself gingerly into the armchair having first removed a needle from one arm. ‘I seem to remember your mother complaining that your going-away preparations were always done early on the morning of departure. And here you are preparing for next September!’
She sat down on the pouf by the fire and pushed her tangled hair back from her face.
‘Tell me your news.’
She did not sound really interested, merely anxious to change the subject. He said, stiff with disappointment:
‘Perhaps I should come another time when you’re not busy?’
‘No.’ She gave him an odd look, almost compassionate, as though she were a much older woman. ‘It had better be now.’
‘I’ve just come from Frank Godfrey.’
He waited. She looked down at the carpet and picked up a thread of black cotton.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you want to hear about it?’
‘Please.’
While he was talking she sat with bowed shoulders looking reflectively at the carpet. He might have wondered whether she was searching for more black cotton if her eyes had not remained so fixed.
‘We shall go to the airfield to the B camp entrance. The rest of the party will stay at the main gates. There are quite a few tree on the B camp site and some of the branches hang over the barbed wire—they seem fairly sturdy.’
Now she did look at him. It was not the frank look that had been so dear to him; there was a reserve that was new to her. There was, too, a suggestion of amusement in the eyes, as though she had discovered some inner secret which she would never share with anyone. She pushed the sleeves of her sweater up just below the elbows and then let her hands dangle between her knees.
‘It sounds very exciting.’
‘There is just a fifty-fifty chance—no one would put it higher than that—that with the help of those trees at least one or two of us may manage to get in.’
She turned away and looked down again, she flicked her hands to and fro and watched the shadows move on the carpet. He began to feel a constriction in his throat. When he spoke his voice was too loud and he sounded tiresomely hearty.
‘So you had better not pack those hefty boots!’
She gave a little start, as though realizing for the first time that she herself was implicated in these plans. Her hands clenched over her knees.
‘I shan’t be there.’ There was a pause, and then the sentences came out in short, sharp bursts. ‘I’m going abroad in May. I was very lucky to get the passage. I can’t risk any trouble.’
He sat quite still; he had the strange feeling that he had known for a very long time that this moment must come. He still hoped that he might evade its consequence.
‘That’s human enough,’ he said lightly.
But just for a moment the old Jill had returned, youthfully determined to analyse and probe and dissect.
‘I think I should like to explain. You see, I’ve discovered that I’m a very emotional person; everything I do is governed by my emotions. If there was a war I’d be first in the queue to join up and fight. I really have no place sitting around demonstrating non-violently.’
As if to give substance to this statement, she stretched out one slim, trousered leg and kicked at a log on the fire which was smouldering ineffectually.
‘My dear child!’ he expostulated. ‘Most of us at some time or other want to fight. Man is a warring animal, violence is part of his nature. But one doesn’t meekly submit to the worst part of oneself, take one’s foot off the brake and just let rip!’ He began to feel renewed confidence; her arguments would not be difficult to refute. ‘We all have our private weaknesses and frailties, but we have to learn to control them. Are you sure you don’t belong in our movement? Don’t you think that even if in the end you failed, you should try to walk this hard path?’
‘I don’t want to walk any hard path!’ The words seemed to explode from her. ‘I’m young. There’s a lot that I want to do, I can have a lot of fun . . . I’ve been realizing that lately. I’ll start fencing myself in with responsibilities and duties when I’ve been around, when I’ve lived freely and . . .’
She stopped abruptly, seeing his astonished face.
‘I had no idea that you worried so much about this,’ he said, entirely at a loss.
The evasive look came into her eyes again. She turned away, mumbling:
‘I want to be free.’
‘But isn’t this the greatest of all battles for freedom?’
Her lips twitched, she seemed a little amused again.
‘Is it?’
‘Indeed it is! How can man live freely in the shadow of this terrible fear? How can he . . .’
‘Ralph!’ She put her hands to her face; she was laughing, and then suddenly the laughter turned to tears. ‘Ralph, don’t you ever see any of us little people?’
He stared at her. And he did see her suddenly very clearly, his beloved niece Jill with her bright candid face twisted by some convulsion which he did not at all understand but which moved him very deeply.
‘My dear, what is it?’ he asked helplessly.
Her lips trembled and tears blurred her eyes, but the effect was mutinous rather than appealing.
‘I don’t care about mankind at large, I’m not big enough for that. The smaller things are trouble enough for me.’
The ferocity in her voice shocked him. He came across to her; he wanted to pet her as he had done when she was a child but somehow it was no longer possible. He laid his hand on her shoulder almost timidly.
‘I’m sorry, Jill dear. This is my fault, I see that now. It has been wrong of me to involve you in all this. I had no idea it preyed on your mind to this extent.’ His words, intended to soothe, seemed to have the opposite effect; she ground her heels into the carpet and her sobs became more convulsive. He said distractedly: ‘Of course, you’re quite right. You’re young and your small individual freedom is important; you mustn’t let yourself be driven into something that seems to be beyond you . . .’
But now, inexplicably, she was laughing again. She held a sodden handkerchief to her mouth and laughed until he began to fear hysteria.
‘Ralph darling! You’re much too good for us,’ she gasped when the paroxysm had subsided.
‘I don’t understand.’
She turned and pressed her damp face against his shoulder.
‘Of course you don’t understand. You’re like one of the great crusaders; always riding at the head of the column without the slightest idea of the preoccupations of the baser elements in the ranks.’
Although she spoke affectionately there was a hint of raillery in her tone that wounded him. He dropped his hand from her shoulder. After a moment, he said quietly:
‘What are these preoccupations of which I am unaware?’
She got to her feet and stretched lazily, then pulled the heavy sweater down across her thighs. As he watched her a hazy idea occurred to him.
‘Is it this Jack that you were speaking to?’
‘Jack?’ She swung one leg over the open suitcase; her movements, he noticed, were a little less athletic than they had once been. She was becoming conscious of the subtleties of her body. ‘Jack? Oh dear me no! Things would be very simple with Jack—quite basic, in fact.’ She bent down and kissed the top of his head. ‘Have I shocked you? I didn’t mean to.’
After that she went out to prepare tea and he could not persuade her to talk about herself any more. But just as he was leaving, she said:
‘I shall have so much to do between now and May that I don’t think there’ll be time to get over to Shepherd’s Bush. But you must all come over here—you and Myra and Sarah, I mean.’
Her eyes met his, then she looked away again. She murmured:
‘You do know what I mean, don’t you?’ When he did not answer, she persisted: ‘I think there’s something to be said for running away sometimes, don’t you?’
He was so utterly unprepared. She had become a stranger to him, and the world seemed to have shifted slightly out of focus; he could think only that he must get away and sort things out in his own mind before he dared comment. He took his leave hastily, muttering: ‘Yes, yes. No doubt you know best.’
As he walked through the quiet backstreets leading to the river, he was saying to himself: It’s preposterous, quite preposterous! She is too young, she could never cope with anyone so difficult as Wilson. And yet, only an hour ago he had been prepared to precipitate her into an enterprise which might have forced on her experiences which would have tested her spirit to the uttermost. But that was quite different, he told himself. And yet he could not clarify in what way it was so different. There was, it seemed, an unresolved confusion in his own mind. He had reached the river and he stood On the embankment watching the brown water moving sluggishly beneath the bridge. He recalled her standing in the doorway watching him as he went, a slightly unfamiliar figure in that grotesque but compelling outfit. Did he know of what she was capable? He doubted it. She probably did not know herself. He realized suddenly that in her uncertainty she had turned to him at that last moment, hoping for guidance which he had failed to give. He rested his arms on the parapet of the bridge and looked down at the river bearing its flotsam of paper bags and sticks, broken bottles and the leaves of plane trees down to the sea. A taxi-driver sitting idle in his cab called out: ‘Don’t do it, guv! Too cold.’ He blew on his hands and watched Ralph walk away. ‘No sense of humour,’ he muttered.
Ralph walked slowly. He loved her so dearly and he had failed her. What was more, even if he were to go back now he would have nothing to say to her. As she had said, he simply did not understand; it was as though in some extraordinary way the personal life around him had passed him by. He felt the first trickle of fear like a cold finger down his spine. I can’t just walk away and leave things, he thought desperately; I must do something. And then, he thought—Myra. Of course, Myra! He would tell her and she would know the answer, women always excelled at this kind of thing. He began to walk more quickly.
III
Sarah watched Spencer shut the door of his cottage and limp down his drive; it was a very small drive, not much longer than the length of Spencer lying down, but he took his time. He was stuffing a letter into his coat pocket. There was a pillar-box just beyond his cottage but he walked past it in the direction of the High Street. He did not look very pleased when she waved at him. Sarah watched him with a fixed expression on her face which seemed to denote some strong inner stress but was really due to the fact that she had given up frowning for Lent.
There were footsteps on the gravel path and Mr. Maynard, the church treasurer, and Mr. Rutledge came round the side of the church. They stopped some distance away, but Sarah could hear their voices.
‘There’s no need to trouble the vicar with this,’ Mr. Rutledge was saying. ‘And there’s no need to take any notice of anything Sid Price may have said.’
‘But we don’t know much about Wilson, do we?’
‘I know about him.’ Mr. Rutledge was shouting now. ‘I don’t recommend people for work in the church without first weighing their capabilities. That lad’s all right; you can take that from me. I’m not exactly a fool when it comes to judging men.’
‘I’m sure you’re not; just the same . . .’
They were walking down the path now; at the gate, Mr. Rutledge said:
‘I’ll see to Sid Price. I’ll go round and have a word with him next week when his dad’s on night shift.’
Their voices died away along the road. It was getting dark now, and it was very quiet in the shadow of the yews. There was a new marble slab at the end of the first row of graves; in the fading light Sarah could just make out the words: ‘Joanna Dove, aged eleven’ and underneath: ‘The Lord hath need of her’. Sarah had never like Joanna who was always complaining and telling tales; nevertheless, she felt rather sorry for her, lying here with no one to know that she was frightened in the dark and needed comfort. She wondered whether Joanna had been saved, and if not, what would happen to her. The thought aggravated the unpleasant disturbance in Sarah’s stomach. Her stomach had been very out of sorts lately. The discomfort seemed to date from Mr. Wilson’s arrival; perhaps he had some kind of sickness which she had caught.
There was the sound of a gate creaking at the far end of the churchyard. Someone was taking the short-cut from Apsley Crescent; which would mean that, unlike Mr. Maynard and Mr. Rutledge, this person would pass close to her. Sarah crouched down. Her legs felt wobbly and the pain in her stomach was pinching tighter than ever; she wanted to shout and say dreadful things to relieve it. Until recently she had been able to cut herself off at will from people, even when she was surrounded by them. But things had changed lately: people, starting with Mr. Wilson, had begun to intrude. As she crouched down in the long grass and listened to the unknown person coming towards her, she said to herself: I hate people. Her stomach twisted again and she jumped up, pressing her hands across her mouth just as Mrs. Thomas came abreast of her.
Mrs. Thomas took a moment to recover herself, and then decided to be amused.
‘Playing at being a ghost, Sarah?’
‘No. I was just being sorry for Joanna Dove.’
Mrs Thomas thought this very unhealthy, so she said briskly:
‘God is taking care of Joanna.’
Sarah looked down at the gravestone.
‘Why did God need her?’
Mrs. Thomas said, even more briskly:
‘You had better ask your uncle to explain that to you.’
‘I can’t talk to my uncle about God.’
‘Why not?’
The demands of Sarah’s stomach had become imperative; she must say it or be sick with the effort of holding it back.
‘I hate God.’
Nothing very terrible happened, although Mrs. Thomas jerked her head back like a startled horse. Sarah said it again:
‘I hate God. I hate Him, I hate Him, I hate Him! He took my mummy and daddy away and I wanted them much more than He did.’
‘Your mummy and daddy wouldn’t like . . .’ Mrs. Thomas began.
‘My daddy didn’t go to church,’ Sarah shouted her down. ‘He said it was all one with the fairies.’
She hadn’t the slightest idea what it had meant, but she remembered that it had annoyed her mother and she hoped it would annoy Mrs. Thomas, too. It did. Exasperation betrayed itself in the woman’s protuberant eyes although she tried to keep her voice bright and amused.
‘It’s long past your bedtime, young lady.’
‘I’m staying up for the Easter pageant rehearsal . . .’
‘But you’re not rehearsing out here. We’ll go and find your Aunt Myra.’
‘Mr. Wilson’s with her.’
Sarah was not sure if this was true, but she didn’t want Mrs. Thomas to go to the house and make trouble with Aunt Myra.
‘I see.’
And Mrs. Thomas looked at the vicarage as though what she saw was very interesting indeed. She seemed to have forgotten about Sarah and God.
‘I won’t trouble her now, then. But perhaps you could tell her that I’ll pop in during the morning.’
When she had gone Sarah remained for a while in the graveyard. It had become quite dark. She supposed, since she had been so wicked, that she should have felt more frightened than ever, but she didn’t. It was rather disappointing, as though nothing at all had happened. She could see the light from the vicarage kitchen shining across the lawn and another light at the top of the house. She went across to the brick wall and clambered on top of it. Above her head the first stars were blinking and there was a very bright nearer star that didn’t blink and was really a planet. She sat on top of the wall for a while trying to find the Plough. Her shoes and socks were damp and the earth smelt strong where Spencer had raked over the flower beds during the day. It was getting rather cold. She gave up the search for the Plough and jumped down into the garden. She ran round the side of the house and flung open the kitchen door, making Aunt Myra jump. Aunt Myra was rolling pastry. She said, without looking up:
‘Don’t forget to take off your wet shoes and socks.’
She spoke loudly because Sarah was usually halfway across the hall on her way to her room before instructions could reach her. On this occasion, however, Sarah was not in a hurry. She stood by the table, watching the movement of the rolling pin which was like so many of Aunt Myra’s movements, jerky and impatient. After a while, she said:
‘Mummy made nice pastry, didn’t she?’
Aunt Myra put the rolling pin down very slowly as though it were bewitched and might jump up and hit her. She turned the pastry and then she said quietly, picking up the rolling pin again: ‘She made lovely pastry, didn’t she, darling? Much, much better than mine.’
Sarah moved a little nearer to the table. Aunt Myra kept her eyes on the pastry, she was treating it very gently now. She Said:
‘Do you remember that Christmas when we came down to stay with you, and you and Mummy . . .’
Sarah sat down at the end of the table and Aunt Myra went on talking very quietly.
IV
The house was empty when Ralph returned, but the kitchen was still warm because the gas had not long been turned off. There was a pleasing smell of hot pastry and some custard tarts had been laid out to cool on a wire tray. Myra’s apron hung askew over the back of a chair and a baking tin was still on the top of the stove with bits of flour and crumbs of pastry sticking to it. Myra must have got behind with her work for once in a way. He went into the hall. He did not mind being on his own, but he liked to know that there were other people somewhere about the house and he liked to have occasional distant evidence of their presence. The silence oppressed him. It was a long time since both Myra and Sarah had been out in the evening. He began to climb the stairs, intending to work in his study. A window latch rattled and there was an occasional metallic click as though an electric fire were cooling. These were pounds one only noticed when the house was empty. He hesitated. They would be at the Easter pageant rehearsal. His failure with Jill had distressed him considerably, and he needed the reassuring presence of his dear ones as he had not needed it for many years. He felt a little aggrieved that at such a time they should have left him alone. He ran down the stairs and went out, slamming the front door behind him.
He had not stopped to put on his overcoat and the air was sharper than he had expected. The ground was hard and the grass was already white with frost. The streets lamps and the lights in the windows along the road stood out very clear and bright. They gave an impression of life and brilliance, a sense of immediacy rare to this dreary urban area. As he came round the side of the church, he heard a voice, carried clear in the frosty air.
‘And then came one of his disciples unto him, saying . . .’
It was Wilson who was reading. Ralph had not realized before how pleasing the voice was, a good range, not monotonous, and with some appreciation of the beauty of the words. He could imagine the scene; Christ somewhere off-stage, the silent group listening, faces upturned. It should be effective, provided they didn’t hold it for too long—people so quickly start to fidget.
The cold made him shiver and he regretted the lack of his overcoat. He opened the door and went quietly in, sitting unnoticed at the back of the hall.
The scene was nearly as he had imagined it, the listening group, faces turned towards the unseen speaker. But there was one thing he had not visualized. She stood in the centre of the group, shaken, it seemed, with spasms of almost epileptic violence; for every phrase the speaker uttered she produced a different, and not always appropriate, reaction—eyes now wide, now deliriously half-closed, lips smiling, then rounded in an ‘o’ of wonder, head nodding agreement, bowed in dismay, hands clasped, unclasped, half¬upraised. She rang the changes on emotion with bewildering rapidity, fear, wonder, doubt, dismay were projected at the audience without pause as though a cinema operator had gone mad and run the whole of a tragedy through in a matter of minutes. Ralph stared, mesmerized, the words forgotten, reduced to a background noise quite unimportant in itself; if Wilson had switched to ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ it would have passed unnoticed. The thing might well have become a parody but for her passionate earnestness; one had only to look at the blazing eyes staring from the contorted face to realize that there was no humour here, the whole soul was being poured into this performance. It was shocking, ludicrous, and quite heart-rending. Sarah, he found himself repeating over and over again; Sarah, my dear; my dear, dear Sarah!
The voice died away, the group dispersed and other players took their place. Wilson came out from behind the screen and they began to rehearse a tableau. Sarah sat beside Myra. She watched the players with a bright interest in which Ralph could not fail to detect a jealous hope that no one would outshine her. No one did. Later, she was one of the women at the tomb, or, more correctly, she was the woman at the tomb. No one else existed while she wrestled with the greatest event of history which was as much beyond her comprehension as it had been beyond that of the simple woman who had first enacted that scene. And yet, as he watched Ralph had the feeling that he was indeed witnessing the triumph of life over death; the withdrawn, almost icy child was releasing a current of energy so strong that he himself was shocked by its crude intensity. What did it mean? The possibilities were infinite. He realized that to understand Sarah would not only be a bigger, but possibly a more rewarding, task than he had imagined.
After this episode the pageant proceeded quietly, a reverent mime of sacred events, suitably devoid of any extremity of feeling. No one noticed Ralph until the rehearsal was over. Most of the players were young and in a hurry to leave for home, they did not take much notice of the vicar; nevertheless, he felt conspicuous, as though an explanation should be given of the strange behaviour of his niece. As the hall emptied, he approached Wilson.
‘Does Sarah overdo things a little, do you think?’
‘You could put it that way.’ Wilson brandished a sword and struck an attitude, rolling his eyes heavenwards; then he laughed and tossed the sword aside. ‘A proper barnstormer, isn’t she?’
‘Well, yes . . .’ Ralph hesitated, and then said unhappily: ‘You don’t feel that her antics throw the whole thing out of balance?’
‘Completely.’
‘Are you going to . . . speak to her about it?’
He could not bear the thought; but they had, after all, promised Wilson a free hand. Wilson, however, did not appear to be perturbed.
‘Do you want me to? I’d rather not. It’s doing her a lot of good and I don’t think it will harm anyone.’
‘It’s just that it’s your production, and I . . .’
‘Oh that!’ Wilson placed a Roman helmet in a hamper on top of a shepherd’s plaid. ‘I don’t care about the ruddy pageant.’
Ralph’s emotions had suddenly become quite beyond his control. He felt a violent gratitude to the young man; he wanted to make him an extravagant present, but as he could think of nothing appropriate, he said:
‘Did you know that Jill is going away in May? You’ll probably want to see her before she goes.’
The more rational part of him reacted with horrified disapproval. This was a betrayal of the worst possible kind. Yet as he looked at Wilson’s stricken face, he felt another surge of emotion engulfing reason. He said idiotically:
‘You mustn’t let yourself be so easily defeated.’
What have I done? he asked himself as they prepared to leave the hall. Perhaps he should tell Myra about it at once and let her unravel the tangled skein of these young lives. But he seemed incapable of explaining what had happened; his intellect appeared to have been completely swamped and he could only feel. Myra glanced up at his anxious face. She put out her hand and drew him back a little so that Wilson and Sarah went ahead of them down the church path.
‘You’re not going to say anything to Sarah, are you?’ she asked. ‘She enjoys it so much, Ralph.’
‘I shan’t interfere in any way. But I hope that people won’t laugh at her.’
‘I don’t think she would notice. And, in any case, if anyone laughs, I shall kill them!’
Her small, thin face was very determined. He put his arm through hers. ‘Bless you! I believe you would.’ As their arms linked close and their bodies drew together, he felt a renewed awareness of the ties that bound them, ties that he had thought so weakened that it would need only one clean slash of the knife to sever them for ever. Now he knew that it would not be as simple as that. How obstinate, how enduring a thing the family was, how deep, how incredibly tenacious its roots! The realization filled him with wonder that had in it an element of fear. How could he stand against this thing with all its ancient strength?
‘What is to become of us all?’ he thought as he went up the path to the house and saw the light flare in the hall as Wilson opened the front door.