South Riding Page 19

  “You ought to see her dance—like a music-hall.

  I’ve had my eye on you

  A long, long time!

  That’s heredity. Wonderful thing, science, Topper. Ever thought of what they can do nowadays! Wireless. Incubators. Ether. Maybe hatch us out of eggs one day. My girl’s learning all about science. Maybe a lady doctor herself one day. Give her old father the right-about, eh?” He chuckled with complacent incredulity. “Heredity.”

  Topper roused himself from his after-dinner doze to catch the last word. He stared solemnly at his bottle, perceiving half an inch of beer at the bottom. He raised it. “Heredity!” he muttered. “That was a good horse. Here’s to it.”

  “Here’s to it,” echoed Barnabas, and threw back his head.

  He felt cheered and reassured. Everything was all right. He had a job with the council. He’d go on doing work for them. Annie would come through all right, as she had done before.

  He returned to the task of repairing Mrs. Brimsley’s stable with added gusto. Topper, poor fool, with his slightly defective brats, knew nothing about the joys of fatherhood. Carne of Maythorpe himself, with his funny little Midge, why, she was in a lower form than Lydia, although she was three months older. That just showed you.

  One day Lydia would go to college and Mr. Holly would come to visit her and she would introduce him to all the professors and varsity men in caps and gowns and they would say, “Ah, Mr. Holly, many a poet lives only to pass on poetry to his children.”

  Poor Annie. She’d never understand his pride in Lydia. A good woman, but low-spirited. No poetry in her. Never was. Always scraping and saving and thinking about domestic things. Still, a good woman.

  Mr. Holly had not been to the movies for nothing. He knew the value of a good woman’s love. At the same time, he knew how affection can be lost by over-devotion to domesticity.

  He settled himself straddling across the beam on the roof of Mrs. Brimsley’s stable and began to clear away broken laths, singing as he worked.

  “Oh, I’m a donkey driver,

  The best upon the line.

  There isn’t a donkey on the road

  That can come up to mine.”

  He had a fine resonant baritone.

  Mrs. Brimsley appeared at her back door with a plate of scraps from dinner. Bill Heyer and her boys had returned to the fields.

  She emptied her plate into the swill tub, then turned, hearing the song.

  “Her coat it is a beauty,

  Her colour’s fair an’ pale.

  Her ears are long, and she’s graceful, she

  Has a beautiful curled tail.”

  “Now what do you think you’re doing?” she called.

  Mr. Holly poked his head up through a hole in the roof and grinned at her.

  “Serenading you, sweetheart.”

  “Get away with you—and don’t go scattering your nasty plaster into the corn-bin, poisoning my horses.”

  She slammed the stable door, sending down a shower of plaster over the singing labourer; but he shouted to her irrepressibly. “Thank you for the confetti. Don’t you wish it was for our wedding?”

  She turned to annihilate him; but he had another happy thought.

  “Oh, and thank you for the nice steak and kidney pie you didn’t give us for lunch.”

  “You!” she cried witheringly, and disappeared indoors, whence emerged at length the appetising smell of hot jam and baking pastry.

  Cheered by beer and badinage, Mr. Holly scraped and hammered and sang, his head full of dreams for Lydia which found their way into his shouted ballads.

  “She shall wear a cap an’ gown,

  cap an’ gown,

  cap an’ gown—

  She shall wear a cap an’ gown.

  My fair laidee!”

  The immediate future, his precarious livelihood, the long tiring cycle-rides against the wind, his ailing wife, the feverish fretful noisy children, the squalor, the monotony, the tedium—all these sank like sediment to the bottom of his mind. On the surface frothed the heady foam of his dreams, and the impish pleasure of a new and fine idea.

  The sight of Topper, piling his tools into a council wheelbarrow, reminded him that “civil servants” keep statutory hours, and he swung his leg over a beam and dropped lightly down into the stable straw. Chuckling to himself he walked across the yard, and knocked at the back door of the widow’s house.

  She came, her comely face flushed with heat from the oven, her sleeves rolled up, her arms floury.

  “Sorry to trouble you,” began Mr. Holly, mild as milk. “But could you oblige with a drink? Water would do—but my mouth’s that full of dust and plaster, and it’s a long pull home with the wind against me.”

  “Why——” She hesitated, half amused by this shameless little man and half indignant, yet glad of any break in the dullness of her days, when Heyer and her sons were out working and the next cottage empty. Mrs. Brimsley was a sociable woman. She had never liked Cold Harbour. “I was just making a cup of tea for myself,” she said. “You get thirsty, baking.”

  “And so you do building,” grinned Mr. Holly, entering the neat, glowing kitchen. “I’ll bet your pastry tastes better than your plaster. Thanks for the invitation—I will try a cup of tea—just for company, like.” He sat down in the Windsor chair beside the fire. “Not that I often drink tea.”

  “You don’t, don’t you? And who said you were going to drink it now?”

  “You did—at least—if you were a lady, you would.”

  “Well, I’m—”

  “A fine handsome figure of a woman.”

  “You!”

  “And a grand cook.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. I’m going to find out.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you came in here for.”

  “A slice of your cake and a cup of tea.”

  “Well, I’m sure it won’t hurt you. It’s quite plain cake.”

  “And none the better for that I like a taste of butter and eggs myself.”

  “I like your sauce!”

  “Your cake’s not so bad.” He cut himself another generous helping. “Try a bit. Your tongue could do with a bit of sweetening.”

  Mrs. Brimsley boxed his ears.

  “Now, now. Don’t you take liberties. I might get a bit of my own back, and then where would you be? I’m the father of a college girl, I am, and must be treated proper. Going to be a lady barrister. Takes after her dad’s family. Brains!”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m going to.” Mr Holly helped himself to a great slab of saucer cheese cake, well laced with rum. He nodded over it with satisfaction. Poor Topper, he thought, a father of fools, cycling drearily back to his scolding Chrissie, while he, Holly, a man of brains, ate rum-flavoured cheese cake and drank tea with a widow. “Ah. Have you ever thought about heredity, Mrs. Brimsley? It’s a wonderful power. Never lets you down. You’d know Lydia was my daughter anywhere. Handsome. Now I’ll tell you something. A girl like that could go anywhere.”

  An hour later, when Nat Brimsley came in for his tea, Mr. Holly was still sitting there discoursing. He went soon, but only after making himself most affable to the scowling lad.

  “Why did you have yon good-for-nothing in here, Ma?” asked Nat, who had a sense of a smallholder’s dignity. “What were you thinking of?”

  Mrs. Brimsley, with a sharp intaking of breath and glow of excitement, was thinking that she had not boxed a man’s ears since she was courting.

  5

  Miss Sigglesthwaite Sees the Lambs of God

  THE HIGH SCHOOL term ended on the Wednesday before Easter. On Good Friday Miss Sigglesthwaite attended the Three Hours’ Service, listened, during the afternoon, to Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion broadcast from York Minster, then went to tea with Miss Burton in her office at the school.

  After tea she wandered out along the cliffs south of Kiplington, wondering what she really ought to do.

&nbs
p; I ought to resign. She’s quite right. She’s a good girl.

  Agnes Sigglesthwaite had been trained in justice and charity. She recognised the quality of her new head mistress. The school was a different place since she had been there.

  She’s intelligent—modern, enterprising; the children like her; she stands up to the governors, yet they don’t quarrel with her. She’s clever enough to give way about the things that don’t matter; but she stands firm as a rock for those that do.

  She’s quite right that the staff should be sacrificed to the girls. “I’m thinking about the girls, Miss Sigglesthwaite.” She meant that. There was no malice in her. She said that she respected my mind. She told Miss Jameson that the school was lucky to have such a distinguished scientist on its staff. But that sigh when she said, “I’m thinking of the examination results.” That told everything.

  It’s true. It’s true. I shall never get IV Upper through their Lower Certificate. They’re devils. They’re devils. They go out of their way to humiliate me. Callous. Cruel. Jill Jackson, Lydia Holly, Gladys Hubbard, Jean Marsh, Beryl Gryson . . . big strong girls. Miss Masters and Miss Burton thought a lot of Lydia Holly; but Miss Sigglesthwaite feared her. Those slum-girls. They knew too much. Their minds had been corrupted.

  Oh, they were cruel to her. They left their home-work unprepared; they wrote flippant and even improper remarks in their nature notebooks. They answered out of turn. They threw notes at one another. Gladys Hubbard came into class one day with her ringlets screwed up on top of her head and her blouse poking out behind. It was too obvious—too cruel.

  How did other women manage their hair and blouses? My hair’s thin because of worry. Father used to say, “Agnes mayn’t be a striking beauty, but she always looks intelligent and a lady.” I’d buy a frock coat. They keep tidy better than blouses. But Edie must have her new teeth and there’s the bill for the boiler.

  “I’m thinking of the discipline,” Miss Burton had said. Miss Sigglesthwaite walked without sense of direction, beyond the houses, across the flat, worn field-path.

  It’s true. I know I can’t keep order. I’ve lost confidence. I can’t trust myself to keep my temper. It’s being always so tired. Those dreadful nights, when you can’t sleep, waiting for dawn; and then the dawn comes and you dread it, because in an hour you must get up, in two hours you must face that dreadful staff-room. The young mistresses. It’s so easy to be unafraid when you’re strong and pretty. Girls get crushes on Belinda Masters. She pretends it’s a nuisance, yet it gives her power. Power. Confidence. That’s what I’m needing.

  Oh, if only Father hadn’t died quite so early.

  He believed in me. Even Christ needed some one to believe in Him. Thou art Peter. On this rock will I build my church. Father was proud of me. On the Sunday after the news of my finals came through he preached from the text, “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of them that have pleasure therein.” Sought out. That searching was what we meant by science. He meant me to be a great scientist—like Madame Curie. And I can’t even keep order in a class of tradesmen’s adolescent daughters.

  That’s a Smew Margellus Albellus. Pretty thing. Hasn’t got a pretty voice, though. Kaak! Kaak! I wonder if he minds. Perhaps his wife thinks it’s lovely when she hears him coming home. Kaak! Kaak! There, children. That’s your father. Who talked of nightingales?

  I’m probably the only woman in the South Riding who would know for certain it was Margellus Albellus. I owe that to Father too. He loved birds. If botany’s going to be your subject, he said, why not make birds your hobby? Be broad-minded. And I did. I hardly ever make a mistake either, except when I thought the female Cirl Bunting was a yellow-hammer. And that’s pardonable when they’re so rare here.

  They laugh at my bird-lore. “Girls! Girls! The little chiff-chaff’s come back again!” Dolores Jameson did that. She’s behind it all. The staff-room’s hell. It’s Gethsemane. Oh, Father, Father—why can’t you comfort me? If I could get away—never see them again—never see myself again. “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.”

  It wasn’t Father’s fault that he died so much in debt. The Church of England pays its clergymen so badly, and he never pretended to be a business man. It wasn’t his fault. He never meant to leave me to keep Mother and Edie; it wasn’t his fault that Mother got rheumatoid arthritis.

  To begin every year with that financial load on one’s shoulders. Never to dare to rest. Never to dare to be ill. Never, for a moment, to dare to dream of the sort of work one would really have liked to do. Professor Gelder wanted me to go on doing research—“seeking out”—but there’s no money in it.

  Mother and Edie were always suggesting that I should get a job in the south of England, since the north was too cold for Mother. I’ve tried hard enough. Over and over, I’ve copied out those qualifications. But no one even sends for me to be interviewed. I’m too old—too old.

  If I leave Kiplington, I shall never find anywhere else—and then what shall we do for Mother?

  Mechanically she climbed a stile and crossed a bridge over a sluggish stream winding down to the sea. She remembered the morning’s lesson.

  “He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden.”

  You could understand Him trying to seek consolation in a garden; but when one is really troubled, scenery isn’t much help. It’s beautiful here, I suppose. It’s a beautiful evening.

  She stood stilly staring at the indented line of the low red broken cliff, the pale sea sliding out, drawing arcs of deeper fawn on the sloping sand.

  Behind a group of buildings, the sun was setting. She saw the outlines of tiled roof and chimney softened by a touch of the light as though cut out of velvet. The loose straws from the old threshed stack stuck this way and that, like silver needles, dazzling and brilliant, alive with light. Around and before her stretched the open country, melting into the quiet grey of distance where trees like smoke-wraiths blurred the horizon. Behind her the quiet sea swung softly, without breaking, against the sand.

  From one of the cottages an old man pottered out into his garden. It was Grandpa Sellars. He was going to shut up his hens for the night, moving cautiously, each gesture prolonged, as though, towards its end, life retarded like a slow-motion film. She heard him calling, speaking to the hens as though they were his children, coaxing, scolding, making the most of every little humour or awkwardness in their behaviour. She felt sure that he was a very kind, patient, gentle-hearted old man.

  If Father had lived, he would be very old now, guarding the fragile flame of life, perhaps, with just such careful piety.

  Mother is very old too, she thought; but she guards nothing. She cannot even walk in the garden talking to her hens.

  If she closed her eyes, Agnes Sigglesthwaite could see the bedroom at Tunbridge Wells where Edie sat, watching their mother, the speechless, motionless twisted husk of a woman who hardly raised a bulge under the bright blue eiderdown. The gas fire hissed. Edie snipped a thread. The five-thirty bus went rattling down the hill. Time stood still.

  I can’t! cried Agnes Sigglesthwaite. I can’t go back and face them. I can’t say I’ve lost my job. And I can’t—oh, I can’t— stay at Kiplington.

  Oh God, oh Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, canst Thou not also take away my burden? Not sin, not sin, oh Lord, but time and life and weariness.

  Here, on this cliff now, in the mellow sunset, to step backwards, so easily, into the peace of death.

  They would say the cliff had crumbled.

  They would say that I was gathering grasses.

  So easy, so kind; oh, why should it not be done?

  Suddenly at the end of the field a gate was opened, and Miss Sigglesthwaite saw all the little lambs of God come leaping over the hill. They danced on spindly legs, they twirled, they bleated. Tail up, nose down, they sprang and waltzed and circled. Behind them trotted the woolly ewes, their mothers, calling, panting, stumbling across the fi
eld, their breath like smoke on the cold clear evening air.

  The ears of the lambs were rosy as apple blossom where one saw them against the light. Their long tails waggled in ecstasy as they hurled themselves upon their mother’s dugs. They were lovely and innocent. They were gay and unfrightened. The slanting sun behind the ewes transformed their long wool to haloes of light.

  Like doom on her heart chimed that morning’s service— “Oh Lamb of God, who is it that betrayeth Thee?”

  Not sin, but time.

  Time, that betrays the little leaping lambs, rosy-eared, smutty-nosed, long-tailed, button-eyed, turning them into feeble, slow, blindly bleating sheep.

  Time which betrayed the eager questing girl, Agnes, her father’s darling, who sought out the works of the Lord, and found them great, and took fierce pleasure therein. Time transformed her into the dreary eldritch creature, seeking suicide on a Yorkshire cliff because she could no longer keep order in the classroom.