by MARY HOCKING
The congregation sang loudly, and with feeling, and none more so than Emma. Daniel could tell from the way she produced her voice that all her tenseness had gone. While the prayer meeting lasted, she had seemed remote from him as a nun locked in a cell, but now she looked up at him and smiled radiantly as she sang:
‘ . . .
And faith has still its Olivet
And love its Galilee.
‘The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press
And we are whole again.’
She, indeed, seemed whole again. He had been wrong to worry about whether her prayers would be answered, it was the doing and not the praying which had been important to her. She had been through this dreaded experience for his sake: for his sake, she had submitted to pain and humiliation; for his sake, she had driven herself to the edge of faith, and whatever happened now she would feel she had not failed him. If God failed him, that was another matter. He moved towards the end of the pew. The sidesmen had opened the doors and Daniel could see sunlight spilling on to the pavement. He experienced a feeling of release as he stepped into the street.
As they walked slowly through the town, Emma said, ‘Did you hear the blackbird singing? It was beautiful, wasn’t it?’
They were very close to each other now: a beautiful moment, something to be remembered always. Daniel felt a craven reluctance to spoil it, but he said:
‘Did you pray for your mother?’
After a pause, Emma answered, ‘No . . . at least, I prayed for all of us, so that includes her.’
‘A sort of package deal?’
‘That sounds horrid!’ She was distressed that he of all people should be so insensitive, and at this of all moments.
‘Mightn’t she have her own separate needs?’ he persisted.
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then, shouldn’t you pray for her separately?’
‘I suppose so.’
She sounded indifferent; but he could tell that her euphoria had evaporated and he knew he had made his point and that it would remain with her, as irritating as a piece of grit beneath an eyelid. He also knew that she was disappointed in him.
Chapter Thirteen
Spring came at last. At Knocke Hall, they scarcely noticed it, they had so turned in upon themselves. But Harry noticed it, driving out to see a client in the country. It was so exquisite in its promise, so poignant in the knowledge that it would not last and yet, in a sense, outside time, containing the memory of other springs, and in spite of all the failures, arousing the same inexplicable longings never to be translated into reality. Harry kept his eyes on the winding road, more for fear that if he looked at those green swelling hills his heart would not break, than for fear that it would. He had to attend a luncheon party given by Alderman Pike. Pike did not entertain for the pleasure of it, so he must be up to something. He lived in Cobbett’s Bridge, a small town on the way to nowhere, now threatened by the by-pass. Pike was chairman of the highways committee and had used his time in office to persuade his committee that traffic congestion was good for Yeominster. Usually, Harry enjoyed the company of his fellow human beings as much for the exhibition of an infinite variety of folly as for any display of the sterner virtues; but today his spirit groaned at the thought of Pike’s luncheon party.
He stopped his car in the wide main street of Cobbett’s Bridge and sat for a few minutes staring out of the window. What did life have in store for him? To become the elder statesman of Yeominster County Borough Council? And he had had such dreams as a young man! A faint haze of sunlight, pale, distant, filtered through mist from fields and the dust of country lanes, crept gently into the little town, exploring the main street, leaving hollows of shadow beneath walls. A breeze ran ahead of it, light and fresh, bringing a smell of wet grass and turned earth from fields not yet loaded down with summer’s ripeness. Should he go to Pike’s, or should he drive away, out of Cobbett’s Bridge, away from Yeominster, away, away . . .?
But England was a small country. He would soon reach a place where he must settle down, earn a living, make commitments. One never escaped. There was an unaccustomed bitterness in this reflection. Lately, the urge to escape had been very strong.
By the time he arrived at Pike’s house, pre-lunch drinks were being served. The conversation was much as he had anticipated.
‘I reckon old Staitham could get fifty thousand for that land,’ Gerald Grey was saying.
‘Not if there’s going to be a by-pass slap through the middle of it,’ Jim Slattery, the architect, retorted. He accepted another gin from Andy Pike and then stared in surprise at his glass as though he could not think how it came to be full.
Mrs. Pike muttered, ‘We’re not going to start about that by-pass now, for Christ’s sake!’ She picked up a dish of olives and began to circulate among her guests.
Andy Pike said, ‘They’ll never build a by-pass. Never! Soil’s all wrong. Damn thing would just sink.’ He took an olive absently and went on, ‘In a couple of years, five at the most, it would sink.’
They looked at Harry. Harry’s judgement was respected. He said, ‘It’s not marshland to the north of Woodslade.’
‘But that would bring the by-pass round the back of Cobbett’s Bridge,’ Andy Pike pointed out. ‘They’d never do that. It would have to go across old Lord Earley’s land.’
‘The days of feudalism are over,’ Jim Slattery said.
‘Don’t you believe it! These things still count. They’d be as likely to route a by-pass through his land as across Windsor Great Park.’ ‘Heard a rumour I didn’t much like,’ Gerald Grey said quietly to Harry.
‘Really?’ Harry could not think of any rumours about the by-pass which would be to Gerald Grey’s liking.
‘Someone – I won’t mention any names—has got hold of a story that Hepple has offered Daniel Kerr a post on the staff at Mansfield.’
Harry, caught unawares, said ‘Really!’ in exasperation.
‘Person who told me has a boy at the school. Says he comes home with all sorts of wild talk as it is, without having an out-and-out communist teaching him.’
‘Kerr isn’t a communist.’
‘If you say not, old boy. But he’s hardly got the right image for a school like Mansfield, has he?’
‘What sort of image does Mansfield have?’ Harry asked, while his mind went over his last conversation with Hepple.
‘You know damn well what I mean. It’s a school where people who still believe in standards and values can send their children. Or it was under Robertson.’
Harry, who found Gerald Grey’s views on education tiresome, was too disconcerted to remonstrate with him. He said, ‘I don’t think you need worry. As far as I know there are no permanent posts to be filled.’
Alderman Pike was saying, ‘There’s a vast amount of fuss about the traffic, but it’s not nearly as bad as people make out.’ He spoke hoarsely as though he had confidential information denied to the ordinary road user.
Gerald Grey said to Harry, ‘Well, I hope you’re right. Don’t forget the council takes up fifty free places a year at Mansfield.’ He looked at Harry with glazed animosity. Harry hoped he was not going to make an issue of this.
After lunch, he drove out to Mansfield to see Hepple.
‘What is all this about your offering Daniel Kerr a post?’ he asked. ‘I’ve had Councillor Grey on to me about it.’
‘You mentioned the possibility to me last week,’ Hepple reminded him.
Harry bit his lip, although really it was his tongue he should have bitten. As a gesture to Erica Kerr, he had indeed made some rather vague statement to Hepple, but he had not imagined that anything would come of it.
‘What use could you make of Kerr?’ he asked.
‘There’s the social science post. McAndrew won’t take up his appointment until September. I need someone to fill in during the summer term.’
‘Do
you think Kerr would be suitable?’
‘I think he would be invigorating.’
Harry looked at Hepple with distaste; a dry, withered man, what did he know of invigoration?
‘There has been a lot of talk about Kerr,’ he pointed out.
‘Exactly,’ Hepple said in his cold, precise voice. ‘Disgraceful! One would like to help.’
Harry felt suddenly weary. What does it matter? he thought; what does any of it matter? This was not his usual reaction to such a situation. Easy-going though he was by temperament, he had a well-developed sense of self-preservation. But now, although he scented trouble for himself, he still said, ‘What does it matter?’ It was his second moment of madness; the first had been when he made this suggestion to Hepple. Now, the regret occasioned by this treacherous spring day seemed more important than anything else and he could not rouse himself to argue with Hepple. He said, ‘As long as you think this is wise. But I wish you had spoken to me first.’
‘I understood you had already asked me to do it,’ Hepple replied suavely. ‘Was I mistaken?’
‘I asked you to think about it. Well, it doesn’t matter. We must hope it works out.’
Harry walked slowly towards his car, conscious he had made a bad job of this, still unable to rouse himself. He sat in the car, looking at the avenue of trees and the school standing back, dingily dignified in the style of another era. He should have remembered how unbalanced Hepple was about these things. When there had been all that fuss about the boys demonstrating at Brocklehurst his reaction had been quite inappropriate. ‘From the denials which I read so constantly, I assume that at Brocklehurst they are carrying out researches into the nastier ways of decimating the human race. And men and women go about their daily lives, completely uninterested! Imagine how a being from outer space would view such a situation. He would think that the only sane people were the protesting students. And, of course, he would be right. But this is not a sane world.’ Oh dear, oh dear! Harry started the engine and turned the car towards the main gates. Thank goodness it was only for the summer term. It would take all of that time for Kerr to find his way about the school.
He felt tired and irritable. When he got back to his office, he went into the men’s lavatory. That damned mirror was still there. It revealed, as before, that his face had good lines. But the eyes winced in the bright light, the whites were definitely liverish; there was a flabbiness about the jaw. He tucked his chin in and realised his collar was tight; he could feel that the flesh at the back of the neck formed a tight little band above the collar. He turned away; much more of this and he would be thinking about growing old gracefully.
Chapter Fourteen
‘I am the scientific one,’ Dorothy said to Daniel. ‘You are naturally religious.’
‘But it is a tremendous opportunity.’ Daniel strode about the room, very excited. ‘I have been too ambitious in my aims, I can see that now. How preposterously presumptuous you must have thought me, how arrogant!’ He looked, she thought, anything but modest now. ‘One must start at the beginning and work outwards.’
‘If you say that Yeominster is a microcosm of something or other, I shall spit blood!’
‘But it means something. Oh, it does mean something. You can’t deny that. You have lived here all these years . . .’ He looked at her, pleading. It was not really Yeominster he cared about. He had work, his self-respect was restored; all his bottled-up energy was released and it was tremendously important that his imagination should be fired, too. She quailed for Yeominster, but could not bring herself utterly to discourage him.
‘Of course it means something,’ she said gently. ‘Only, Daniel, try not to make too much of this job.’
‘Too much?’ Eyebrows shot up, hands were flung wide. ‘How can one make too much of it? Where does one start in the attempt to build a new social structure more appropriate to the requirements of modern life?’
She shook her head. ‘I give up. You tell me.’
‘With the young, of course! Oh, I’ve no wish to find solutions for them,’ he assured her. ‘But I want to awaken them to their potential, not as protestors – everyone protests nowadays, it has become a kind of mass therapy – but as people in whom real power resides if only they would learn how to use it?’
‘Isn’t this rather a lot to accomplish in one term?’
He agreed that it was, but he had never lacked confidence. ‘Promise,’ she insisted. ‘Don’t try to make too much of it.’
He nodded his head. ‘Yes, you’re right. I try too hard. Always. Oh, to be accidentally wise!’ He took her hand. ‘Like you, my dear.’
‘Daniel, not now.’
‘But when, when?’
‘When you have finished your affair with Yeominster.’
‘You will come away with me? I shan’t get a job in this country, I can see that now. But I’ve written to friends abroad. Something is bound to turn up soon. You will come, won’t you?’
‘What about your family?’
‘It is obvious that Erica and I can never live together.’
‘And Giles and Emma?’
‘Giles is lost to me. What I do will not affect him, provided I do it several thousand miles from here. As for Emma, I hope, I more than hope – sometimes I almost pray – that she won’t find it too hard to reconcile herself to this. Will it be very hard for her, do you think?’
‘I can’t say, Daniel.’
‘Why are human beings so complex?’ he asked, momentarily sad.
‘By the end of the century, you will be able to tell us,’ she gently reminded him.
‘I’m not so sure.’ He had long been aware of the complexity of living organisms, but had only recently become aware that the complexity is repeated in human relationships. ‘But whatever happens, I can’t make decisions regarding my future life dependent on Emma’s reactions; it would be wrong, and even if it was right, I couldn’t do it.’ He frowned, perhaps aware of some confusion in this sentence, and then appealed to Dorothy, ‘Are we going to allow ourselves to be bogged down by considerations of right and wrong?’
‘Yes, Daniel.’
‘Then, that means . . .?’ He stared at her in dismay.
‘You must give me time.’
‘Oh yes, yes. Indeed, you must have time!’ His relief was tremendous. He was plainly confident that if time had its way, his claims would prove stronger than those of mere right. He left Dorothy to time and concentrated his mind on his new work. He had agreed with Hepple that during the holiday period, he would study the boys’ work programme. In addition to this, there was a lot of preparatory work which he needed to do, and each morning he went to Mansfield and settled down in the school library which was the most peaceful place he had found since he left the laboratory in Africa.
Erica and Emma were, for different reasons, vastly relieved to hear of Daniel’s appointment. Giles was far from pleased. He sweated whenever he thought about the summer term. He was intensely sensitive about his family. On the rare occasions when he had seen his beloved mother at public functions, she had seemed to him to behave quite inappropriately and his bowels had turned to water. He imagined there was a norm of social behaviour to which everyone conformed except his own relatives. Although he believed in revolution, he wanted conformity in social intercourse where people of his parents’ generation were concerned. He did not think he could expect conformity from his father. Also, he knew that his father had never taught, and so did the other boys in his group. Giles would have been prepared to resign his father to them, but that he should be present while the baiting went on was beyond all bearing.
He tried to talk to his mother about it. He should have known better. It wasn’t just that she was so emotional; she answered each statement put to her by talking about something quite irrelevant. When he said, ‘I can’t possibly go back to Mansfield if Father is going to teach there,’ she replied, ‘I have just done a report on membership of the conservation society.’ She spoke with grinding, mart
yred patience. ‘This is the first time, the first time for months I have felt able to sit down to a job like that . . .’ She closed her eyes and gripped the arms of her chair, looking for all the world as though she was going into a trance.
Giles said, ‘I can’t go back next term, you must . . .’
She interrupted him, ‘Giles! I have had enough. I warn you!’
‘But I haven’t said anything yet.’
‘Good!’ She thrust out a hand at him, fingers spread wide. ‘That is very good. So don’t say another word and we’ll have no trouble.’
‘I shall run away.’
‘Then run away!’ She turned on him fiercely. ‘If that’s all you can think to say, then you had better run away! A young man of your age, talking about running away! You should be standing up to things, supporting your mother. I can’t bear everything on my shoulders, Giles. I protected you when you were a child, but a stage has been reached when I can’t do that any more. When it wouldn’t be right of me to try.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he protested.
‘You will have to grow up.’
‘I can’t grow up while I’m still at Mansfield. It’s not a grown-up establishment.’
‘That’s absurd. I was married at your age – or soon after, anyway.’ ‘You are absolutely impossible!’ he shouted.
But later, he returned to the attack.
Harry Clare had called to discuss proposals for a conference which the committee of the conservation society planned for the early autumn. It was while he was with Erica that Giles dropped his bombshell. He had been planning this for some time, but his father’s appointment had stiffened his resolve. Normally, he kept out of the way when Harry came to the house because he was uneasy about Harry’s relationship with his mother; on this occasion, however, he thought that Harry might be of use to him, since he was not only chairman of the governors of Mansfield, but also vice-chairman of the education committee. He said to his mother, who was wondering how to get rid of him: