by Ursula Bloom
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And there’ll be some supper in a few moments. You can wash downstairs at the pump, it’s got a trough and is in the corner of the yard. I’ll show you where.’
She went down the rough ladder steps again, the green frock trailing on each step, her hair shining in the darkness. He followed her into the yard to the pump, once painted a dull red, and now faded to a rusty pink, with a stone trough set before it against which lay an extra snout to be fixed to the spout when water was required to be ‘pumped up’.
‘When you’re ready, come in for some supper,’ she said, and left him.
He went back to the loft and fetched his washing things; whilst he was away someone had put a rough but clean towel on to the wide rim of the trough for him. He pulled his shirt over his head, and stood stripped to the waist; pumping the trough full, he swilled head and neck and body in it. The water was sharply cold, and the flesh reddened under the tang of it, but he felt better, and went to the loft for a clean shirt, as the old one had become hard with sweat. He combed his wet hair flat, it always irritated him by the absurd little drakes’ tails which curled up, and which he felt were foolish. Now he knew that he was very hungry, and went down the ladder stairs across the yard to the house. The girl was waiting for him.
‘Hello, I thought this would be about your time,’ and seeing the clean shirt, ‘give me the old one, and I’ll wash it through for you.’
‘Nonsense, I couldn’t dream of troubling you.’
‘It’ll be no trouble. There’s nothing in a silk shirt, it’s not like washing print. It’ll be drying whilst we’re eating,’ and then, ‘you get it, or I’ll go up and fetch it myself.’
He brought it reluctantly, and she went to wash it. As she went, he heard her mother call her and then knew that her name was Muriel. The name didn’t suit her.
He went into the farm kitchen somewhat nervously, for he felt that he was an intruder, and knew quite well that the mother had not really wanted him. The room was benign, and on the spread table were a cold pie, some potatoes smelling tempting in their roasted jackets, a frothing jug of beer, and some bread, butter and cheese, all set in big shiny plates. ‘Come on,’ said the mother, and they gathered round.
The farmer himself was a dour man, with a funny little grey beard, and a face furrowed like his own plough-lands. He talked to the two women (the lady lodger had put in an appearance, a townswoman, with a smart blouse over her high bosom, and a tightly corseted waist) and he did not appear to notice the lad. Hugo felt to be out of it, although Muriel came and sat beside him and tried to talk to him. The pie was cut, and portions given round; automatically Hugo’s tankard was filled with beer. So far he had never tasted it, save once at Dover when out with two more daring prefects, who, as men of the world, could take their whack! Hugo was not the type that drinks, but he did not like to refuse the beer in case it would be considered an insult, so he accepted it. The pie was good and he was ravenous and ate it hungrily. He had known that he was wanting food when he was washing at the pump trough, and more so when he had come into this room and had seen it in its lovely light brown beauty, which had made his mouth fill with saliva in anticipation. He ate heartily, swilling it down with the beer, which at first nauseated him because it tasted so bitter, but had the merit of slaking his thirst.
‘You like it?’ Muriel asked.
‘I was terribly hungry.’
‘At your age boys can eat a house,’ said the lady lodger approvingly.
‘I’m eighteen in February.’
‘Quite the man!’ He could not tell from the tone whether the farmer meant to be unpleasant, or was condescending.
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Where d’you come from?’ asked Muriel.
‘Hertfordshire.’
‘That’s a long way.’
‘Yes, I’ve been staying with an old nurse at Portsmouth, and I’m cycling home.’
‘Your mother will think it’s a bit too much for you.’
‘No, she won’t. She died when I was born.’ The conversation halted at that, the women looking at him pityingly, as though he now became the subject of additional interest, and he, not liking this, went on quickly:
‘I’m going to work in my father’s tea office soon.’
‘You’ll like that?’
‘No, I expect I’ll hate it, because I’ve always wanted to go to sea.’
Muriel glanced at him. ‘You ought to have gone to sea. You’d have loved it. Anybody could see that you’re cut out for it.’
‘Yes, but it isn’t any good. My father’s dead against it, and nothing will turn him. No, I’m to go into the tea office,’ and he laughed.
There was something unreal about the laughter, he hardly recognised it as being his own, and could not imagine how it had suddenly altered like this. He saw them looking at him as though they’d observed it too, and he went on talking, speaking quickly to cover his own anxiety about himself. The talk was all about nothing. He knew that it was all about nothing, yet could not stop it. They had finished the meal, the women got up and collected the plates, smeary with use, and the tankards with the stained froth of the beer still clinging to the sides.
‘Can I help?’ he asked, and got up too. His feet seemed to be a great deal further off than he had remembered them before, his head a good deal higher up. The whole world slipped out of proportion, he did not know what was the matter with it, or whether the cause of it all lay within himself, or in the world around him. He caught at the chair back because it represented safe anchorage in a world inclined to rock.
‘You can’t help,’ said the woman quite roughly, ‘you’d better sit down.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t sit down, I’ll go out.’
He could see the darkness of the door which led into a little paved passage and by that to the entrance, and he made for it. It waved like a flag, or he waved, he did not know which. He felt terrible. Outside he stood staring at the yard, the sharp outline of vision blurred, his head opened and shut, his feet seemed still to be so far away, and his hair so high. He knew that a purple morning glory twined about the porch, and he could see the cattle yard just beyond, and hear the animals chafing at their stall chains. But it was all like so much stage scenery, and he himself was just a miserable onlooker with a dizzy head and a heavy body, and legs and brain a universe apart.
He tried to move across to the coach-house, longing for the privacy of the hay and the dimness of the loft, but, as he walked, he felt worse. He clung to the low wall for support, not knowing what ailed him, and as he reached the little gate which led through the dung and straw to the outhouses, a sour stream gushed out of his mouth and he was very sick. He hoped that nobody saw, because he knew now that he must be drunk, and it was an appalling thought.
For a few moments his head opened and shut so badly that he came to a standstill, knowing that he had gone green white, and believing helplessly that he must be dying. Then, opening his eyes, he saw that the world had settled itself and was nearer to the world that he had always known. The outlines sharpened, the house was no longer lurching, and his feet were a good deal nearer to his head.
He managed to reach the coach-house, and to crawl up the ladder, thinking at every moment that he must be sick again. He crawled into the hay and lay there under the window, with the light dimming and the cool breeze blowing in from the fir trees beyond. He’d be better soon, he supposed. Then he slept.
He awoke later, and the stars were out, and a little bit of moon ‒ like a golden nail-paring ‒ showed behind the firs. It was quite cold now, even here amongst the hay, with the soft scents and the faint yet delicious must of it. He lay still, surprised to find that suddenly he felt quite well again, and that the world was still very beautiful and very much as he had remembered it.
Then he heard a step on the ladder; it must have been that which had awakened him. At first he thought in terror that it must be the farmer, who, having
discovered what had happened, had come up here to turn him out; then he knew that it was the girl by the lightness of her step. She came into the loft, and though he could hardly see her because the light was so dim, he knew that she came near and knelt down in the hay.
‘Are you better?’
‘I don’t know what to say; I must have been drunk.’
‘Yes, it was the beer, it’s pretty strong, you know, and maybe you aren’t used to it.’
‘I’m not. I’m very much ashamed, whatever did they all think of me?’
‘Oh, they just laughed. Father thought it a joke, he’s always thinking it funny taking it out of townfolk.’ But Hugo knew that she was annoyed that her father should have thought it so funny.
His head still ached badly, he found that out when he stirred it, and he said, ‘I was a fool. I ought to have said that I’d hardly tasted it before, but I was afraid that he might take offence. You’d been so good in putting up with my being here at all, that I didn’t want to risk offending you.’
‘If I’d known I would have stopped you. It made me so angry seeing you like that, and father laughing, and thinking it so funny.’ She stopped, and choking down her anger went on. ‘Still, that’s that. If you were sick you’ll get over it all the quicker,’ and very gently, ‘it’s a lovely night.’
‘Yes, so beautiful, and here with the smell of the hay and the stars, it’s like a piece of poetry.’
‘Quite like a piece of poetry,’ she said. She sat there and her face was radiated by the tender luminous light of that moon, her eyes dim. ‘You’re almost eighteen?’ she asked.
‘Yes, and going into the office.’
‘You hate it, don’t you?’
‘I loathe it. Why should tea interest me?’
‘One of these days you’ll go to sea, because the sea is made that way, it gets people in the end. You’ll get there, it is only a matter of waiting.’
‘I wish that I could think that.’
‘I get hunches about people, and I’ve got a hunch about you. You’ll get what you wanted because she wanted it for you too.’
‘Who do you mean?’
‘Why, the mother who died when you were born.’
He told her about his grandfather, and the photograph of the girl, and the hairpin box, and the curl, which were his most precious belongings. He told her of the woman, about whom he knew almost nothing, save that she had married for money, so Mrs. Morse had said, and had made her bed hard and had died when her baby came. The girl listened.
She said, ‘I think you’ve only got half of the story. There’s another half, the one you don’t know, the one that really matters.’
‘And I’ll never find that one out, because my father will never tell me, and now that my grandfather is dead, there isn’t a chance.’
‘But there’s always a chance. You take things too hardly, and you don’t realise that there is always a way out.’ Her voice was heartening, and lying here in the soft comfortable hay, he forgot that he had felt so ill, because she had the power to convince him of the truth of what she was saying. ‘You’re very nice,’ she said to him, ‘simple, but very nice.’
‘Why am I so simple?’
She laughed. ‘Oh well, you are. You and me being here together like this, with the stars and the moon and all that, and you not feeling anything.’
‘Why should I feel anything?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re simple.’ Her voice was tremulous. She leant over him and her cheeks were cool whilst her lips were very warm. She pressed them to his mouth, and whereas he had always supposed that such a situation would make him feel quite different, glowing, unreal, a new person, now he realised that he only felt embarrassed. He wanted to kiss her back, but somehow he couldn’t. He felt terribly young.
She got up, he’d always remember the way that she stood there, and the slimness of the waist and the curve of her hips, and her straight brown legs, the feet thrust into those rope shoes.
‘I’ll be going now,’ she said, quite quietly but as though she were disappointed. She slipped away as a shadow, and after she had gone there was no sound save the brush of an owl’s wing in the trees, and the scraping of an ox chain against its stall; no smell save the scent of the musty hay, with a dead summer seeded into it.
He woke early, surprised to find that he was feeling so well. The day was already born and the sun quite bright, whilst the whole farm seemed to be astir. The men were in the barns, and the wagons were rolling out of the yard to the harvest fields, rumbling as they went up the hill.
Hugo went down to the pump and washed himself there, grateful for the sharp bite of the cold water, and tingling with it. Nobody was about, although the towel had been put ready for him, and by its side the clean shirt, already ironed. Obviously Muriel was domesticated.
Indoors she was frying eggs over the open fire, a tea towel pinned about her frock in a clumsy attempt at an apron.
‘Oh, hello!’ she said, but he thought that she purposely avoided his eyes. He also was embarrassed, because the feeling that he had disappointed her persisted.
‘Oh, hello!’ he said.
Her mother came from the cellar head, where the food was kept. She remarked, ‘It’s a wonder that you’re up so soon. Townsfolk sleep late. And after last night!’ She laughed remembering it.
Hugo went red. ‘I’m so sorry about last night. I’d never had much beer before, and I didn’t know what it would do to me.’
He heard the man’s step on the threshold and his voice with a tone in it that was unpleasant. ‘Well, you’ll know another time. Beer’s a good friend to them as masters it, but a bad master. You were all out, I reckon.’
Muriel turned from the eggs over the fire, and he could see that her face had gone very red, much redder than the fire could have made it. ‘Let him be,’ she said, ‘he said as how he was sorry, lots wouldn’t have done that much.’ Nobody said anything, but they gathered round the table awkwardly. There was strong black tea in a brown pot, and a jug of new milk with the cream rising; a fresh loaf, and the eggs, so new that they were like milk froth on the dish. When they had finished, the farmer got up, and clumped out into the yard; the women began to collect the plates and carry them into the kitchen to wash, and Muriel stood about, as though not quite sure of what would happen next.
Hugo said to the woman, ‘I want to pay, please, how much is it?’
‘Pay? There’s nothing to pay. We don’t make a charge for the loft, it isn’t like a real bed.’
‘But there’s the food. It was very good food, and I am afraid that I disgraced myself. I want to pay for what I had.’
Stubbornly she replied: ‘There’s nothing to pay.’
‘But I must leave something?’ He appealed to Muriel. ‘I want to pay.’
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. ‘It doesn’t cost us anything. The food was here, we grow most of it ourselves, and there isn’t any charge for it.’
He felt baffled, and again ashamed because he knew that it would be most ungracious to have foisted himself upon them and then to pay them nothing.
‘I’ll pack my things, and get the bag on to my bike,’ he suggested. He got his things out of the loft and took three half-crowns. He’d leave them somewhere where they would be found after he had gone. He was sorry to leave the loft with its pleasantly delicate scent, and the warmth of the hay, and the view from the window. One day perhaps he’d come back. But, as he took a last look, he was not sure that this was not a milestone in his life, and milestones are not repassed. Once gone, they are left behind.
He found Muriel in the yard, ready to help him, and he had difficulty in slipping into the kitchen to leave the half-crowns on the mantelpiece and to say good-bye to her mother. Then he came out again, and, for no reason at all, stood about uncertainly, reluctant to start, yet hating staying.
‘I’ll write,’ he said at last, ‘you’ve been so very good to me.’
‘You’ll forget
.’
‘I won’t, and you must write to me.’ He gave her his address, and she wrote it down on the rusty pink paint of the pump with a stubby little pencil from her pocket.
‘Well, so long,’ she said.
‘So long,’ he answered.
He slept the next night at a little public house in Kingston, arriving there very late because it had been heavy going, and he had stopped in a wood, and had gone to sleep during the hottest part of the day, sleeping longer than he had originally intended. At this inn he had a small stuffy bedroom, with a honeycomb quilt to the austere bed, and a few unsuitable texts hung on the walls, giving it a godly air. Supper consisted of coarse meat sandwiches in the bar parlour, and breakfast the next morning was a meal of tired bacon and burnt tomatoes.
Cycling on the morrow had lost much of its joy. Houses hemmed him in, the cosmopolitan all-shapes-and-sizes houses of the outer suburbs, changing to the inner suburbs, and then to London itself. The traffic was irritating, and the weather was far too hot. He should have skirted London, he knew, but thought of it too late. Climbing the Finchley Road, he felt the air grow clearer and fresher, and mounting the Hampstead heights, saw London behind him in a heat haze, and was glad to have out-distanced it.
He made Barnet that night, sleeping in another little inn with nothing to recommend it. He knew then that the enjoyment of the journey had been in Hindhead, in the spreading beauty of Hampshire, and in the girl who had sat with him in the starshine in the hay-loft.
He was home by the mid-afternoon, to find that his father was at the office, and about the house was that congenial relaxation and peace never there when James Blair was about. He changed and had a bath, and went out into the garden, lying down on the grass under the walnut tree as he had done as a young boy, and looking up into the wide nutty-scented leaves. The fruit was already formed in smooth green ovals faintly burnished. It was queer that he should be lying here, queer that he should think of Muriel again.
That night, when she had kissed him, he had been merely embarrassed by her, and had not liked it. She had made him feel shamefaced. Now he thought of her lingeringly, and he wished that she were here with him now. She understood so much about him. Her hunches were strange, yet they were true. She would have known how he thought of this tree as being a ship, and how he had always woven dreams about it.