Now he seemed to have found his listener.
Saxon liked his work, found that he could manage his employer, and was happy with his wife; but at the back of his mind there was always the feeling that this odd life they led, between two worlds, was only a temporary one. He felt, too, that his new job was not much better than the old one. He still wanted more money and more responsibility, he was sick of calling old men ‘sir’ and touching his cap. The undecided, squalid-romantic life at Sible Pelden was as dead to him as a film seen three years ago. It was impossible to believe that he had been that raw boy who hoped to squeeze old Wither for a thousand pounds. It made him ashamed to remember.
He was married now, working in London, with educated people for his friends, but that was not enough. Ambition, the strongest note in his nature, sounded night and day in his mind like a far-off bugle, and he was impatient with his present life even while he enjoyed it. He wanted the future to come, and he wanted it to be splendid.
With this vague longing nagging at him, he began to be careful with money. He banked ten shillings a week, sent the usual ten to his mother, gave Tina two pounds ten for housekeeping, and kept only five shillings for himself to buy cigarettes, an occasional beer, and sometimes a second-hand book about the motor industry, in which, as a by-product of his job, he was interested.
He also began to read. He read, cautiously and always with a grain of salt, books about the present state of the world, lent him by the Baumers, who watched his progress with amused sympathy. Presently they noticed that he was more interested by passages about economic conditions than by any others. Facts about trade – transport, geographical advantages and disadvantages, booms and slumps in raw materials caused by wars civil or general – absorbed his attention. He also remembered what he read. David Baumer told Tina that her husband had a good brain.
‘… A good memory, the power to suspend judgment until he knows more about a subject, able to link up apparently unrelated facts – all good qualities. It’s not an original mind; absorbent and retentive rather than creative. One day he’ll do something (no, he won’t write; at least, I hope not). He’ll found an important business, probably. But you beware! he’s stopped reading novels!’ added the painter, whose own brain darted like a brilliant tri-lingual bee in and out of the ancient flowers of European culture but who was not interested in the present state of the world.
But if Saxon had stopped reading novels, he had not stopped treating his wife as his best friend, and the difficulties they faced together in their half-conventional, half-bohemian life sweetened and deepened their love. It was not a heightened relationship (indeed, Tina sometimes missed the old, dangerous days a little) but it was a true one. Like most working-class men outside the pages of fiction, Saxon did not romanticize his wife; however, he made love to her, and he loved her, and very happy they were. His ambition might trouble him, his brain might bolt and enjoy indigestible facts like a half-starved young goat, but his emotions were at peace.
Viola heard no more about having helped Saxon and Tina while the family was on holiday in the summer, but Mr and Mrs Wither were colder in manner to her after Tina had gone, and she supposed that Madge had been talking to them. They had never approved of her, as we know, but Tina had stood between her and their open dislike. Now that Tina had gone, they showed their feelings in many little ways, and as Christmas drew near, she became steadily more unhappy. There was disturbing news, too, from Miss Cattyman.
Mr Burgess, now head of Burgess and Thompsons, had been going on in the most alarming way lately, talking about getting a New Spirit into the firm, weeding out dead wood, pepping things up and getting a move on. The words zip, hustle, service and sales flew through the lineny-smelling air of Burgess and Thompsons like so many spiteful little bullets. An awful system called Comparison of Selling Ability had been started, in which the respective sales throughout the week of Miss Cattyman, Miss Lint, Miss Russell and the two little ’prentices were compared and commented upon. The two little ’prentices were made to wear dark green silk overalls. Soon the elder assistants were told that they must wear them, as well. With ecru bows at the neck. They would cost eighteen shillings each and the money would be stopped out of salaries each week until they were paid for. Time Marches On.
All this alarmed Miss Cattyman very much.
Viola went in to see her one Sunday afternoon, after she had been to see her aunts and give them their Christmas presents (Not To Be Opened Till Christmas Day). Auntie May, the one who was not a district nurse, said at once what a dreadful thing it was your sister-in-law running off with the chauffeur like that and had Viola known what was going on before it happened? Auntie Lizzie, the nurse, had heard it from someone down at the Infirmary whose sister lived in Sible Pelden. Viola had to give all the details, and did so with some pleasure; it was quite nice to have a good old gossip again with Auntie May and Auntie Lizzie. At least when she was with them, she felt like one of the family, which was more than she did at The Eagles. She missed Tina exceedingly.
After drinking two very strong cups of tea with the aunts, she walked round to 19 Carrimore Road, where Miss Cattyman had her bed-sitting-room, and drank two more even stronger, which she made while Miss Cattyman, who had been taking an afternoon nap, lay sideways on the bed, her tiny feet in their carefully darned stockings pulled up under the quilt, her bright old eyes watching Viola moving about.
The blinds were up when Viola came, showing a dreary prospect over the frozen waters of the Central Canal, which ran at the back of Carrimore Road; and the black, monstrous gas works, towering against the quickly fading winter sunset. Viola let the blinds run down and lit the gas.
While they drank the tea (Viola enjoyed that, too; she did not like the China stuff they had at The Eagles) Miss Cattyman told her about Mr Burgess and Comparison of Selling Ability, and ended by saying that ‘she could not understand Mr Burgess these days; he was a Changed Man. My work has always given satisfaction, Vi,’ said Miss Cattyman, with dignity, ‘and I must say I don’t care for all these new ideas. It’s so bad for the children’ (the two little ’prentices had been ‘the children’ to Miss Cattyman since 1907, when the first batch had come) ‘to hear Mr Burgess telling me or Miss Lint how to sell silk stockings. What your dear father would have said about it all, Vi, I don’t know.’
(I expect he’d have enjoyed it, thought his daughter. Dad loved a bit of change. But she did not say so. People liked to have their own ideas, and never thanked you for butting in.)
‘So where it will End,’ concluded Miss Cattyman, dipping an Oval Marie into her tea and sucking it, ‘I cannot say. I really cannot say, and that’s the truth.’
But Viola could have said: and she went home very worried. Dear old Catty, dear kind Catty who had known her since she was a baby and known her mother, Catty, who of course hadn’t saved a farthing of her three pounds a week – Catty was going to be sacked.
A few days later Viola found the dismal house and its depressed occupants so unbearable that she suddenly announced she would take sandwiches, and go off all day to the marshes to See The Birds, taking the morning bus from Sible Pelden, and as no one did anything to stop her beyond saying drearily what on earth did she want to go to the marshes for in this awful weather, off she went.
The Birds were about the only interesting thing to be seen near Sible Pelden in the winter. They came from abroad, it was said, thousands of them, as soon as hard weather set in. No one but Giles Bellamy knew their names; and somehow, though the Sible Peldenites often said during the winter, ‘The Birds’ll be there by now; we really must go and see them this year; remember how interesting they were that time we went, five years ago, was it?’ no one ever did go, for it was beastly cold out on the marshes, lonely and desolate, and most people naturally preferred to go to the pictures.
But Viola went, bumping along in the bus with one fat woman for company, through lanes thinly covered with bitter snow, right out to Dovewood Abbey, the last stop. Here t
he marshes began.
She walked for a good half-hour along the lonely marsh road, passing the ruined Abbey on its hill, looking out across the flat wastes of snowy reeds and grey ice broken by dark, still water. There were not many of The Birds near the road; their huge flocks kept further out, miles away across the saltings where only fishermen, bird-watchers, reed-cutters, and (it was whispered) boats dipping deep into the water with their load of smuggled silk stockings or cameras troubled to go.
But the noise and feeling of birds was all round her; their wild voices sounded near, from clumps of purple shivering reeds and woolly bullrushes; she caught a glimpse of one, big and brownish-grey, wading behind a screen of bent, and once a flock of small ones came sailing across a sheet of water that reflected the grey sky; plump, glowing and summerlike in glossy chestnut and green.
The steady wind blew slowly, like a wall of ice pressed on her cheeks, smelling of reeds, marsh-water and snow. There was no sound except the thin hiss of this wind going against miles of bull-rushes, and water-loving, thick-leaved plants now ginger-brown and withered. Once, far off she saw a mighty cloud of birds go up, dark against the grey sky.
Where the marsh road began to run out in bewildering little tracks, she stopped, unrolled her mackintosh and sat on it to eat her sandwiches. She was chilled and very sad, yet somehow she was enjoying herself. Funny how no one comes here, she thought; it’s lovely, really, in spite of being so freezing and not a soul about; and she looked away across the saltings to where the sea was, and as she lifted her face, rosy with the steady smoothing of the cold wind, the sun darted a wild gold beam right across the marshes; the clouds were breaking at sunset.
Suddenly, while she was staring into the glory, she heard a strangely thrilling noise, like the galloping of horses coming nearer and nearer, and yet it was not like the quick thunder of hoofs, it was deeper and more musical, it was unlike any noise that she had ever heard, and so exciting that her heart began to beat quickly, and she stared anxiously round to see what it might be.
Nearer and nearer it came, until suddenly there swept over her head a flock of wild swans, rushing on white-gold wings into the sunset. Laughing with excitement, she ran down the track to follow their flight, but the sunset, and tears, dazzled her, and she could not see.
For some time she stood there, staring yearningly across the distances where they had flown. They were so beautiful! she had never seen anything so beautiful in her whole life. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could always feel like she had felt when they thundered over her head, not wanting anyone, happy to be quite alone and looking at something as beautiful as those swans?
But the sun had gone behind the clouds again, and the wind was getting up, it was nearly half-past three and the last bus left Dovewood Abbey at four.
She picked up her mackintosh, which was blowing slowly towards a black pool, and put it on, for rain had started to fall. Hands in pockets, she walked quickly back along the desolate track, her mind already in the everyday world again. Tea would be nice; she might stop for a cup at Lukesedge, and have some hot toast with it, and a boiled egg. Hang the expense, be a devil, as Shirley said. There was the bus, just stopping outside the closed pub. Behind her, as she began to run, clouds of birds were streaming across the marshes in their twilight flight.
Well, she had been to the marshes to See The Birds, though she had not actually seen many. P’raps it was the wrong time of the day, or something.
But those swans … they were lovely. She would never forget them; she could still hear the noise their wings made, and see their golden necks outstretched, streaming overhead in the sunset like the Swan Princes in the fairy story. They only wanted crowns, to look just like them. Only those swans she had seen were better than the fairy story, because they were real.
They were so beautiful. She would remember them as long as she lived.
Presently the bus stopped at the deserted cross-roads, and she got down. The only other person in sight was the Hermit, and she would not have seen him, for it was dark, had he not been busy at the front door of Mrs Caker’s cottage in a glow of light. He was unscrewing a beer bottle, holding it carefully over the doorstep so that the foam should not soil the parlour floor. This done, he retired majestically into the cottage with all the airs of a proprietor, and shut the door.
The days grew ever darker; and presently it was Christmas morning.
CHAPTER XXIII
Spring was late that year and as usual it was delicious when it came, and enjoyed the more for its lateness.
Viola felt that she had really grown up during this endless, dark, sad winter, brightened only by an occasional letter from Shirley, busy with a baby son. Her father’s death, her widowhood, and the first dull weeks at The Eagles had never made her feel so old as had the silent, gloomy days between October and the end of March. She had heard no news of Victor; he might have been dead, and she continued to dream of him in a childish grieving way without trying, as she had at first with Tina’s help, to occupy her mind and control her feelings. She had grown thinner, and was quieter nowadays. Life seemed so hopelessly dull and sad, and it would go on like this for ever.
But March was going out, and the evenings were getting longer, with birds singing to one another from the tree-tops, and things began to happen.
Little Merionethshire, who had met Annie at the Staff garden party at Grassmere in the summer, ran into her on their mutual afternoon-off in Chesterbourne, and told her that the Springs were expected back at Grassmere the next day; and then all the maids would have plenty to do, because Mr Victor was getting married on the twenty-fifth, and though it was going to be in Town at St George’s where all the posh weddings were, Mrs Spring was going to entertain a lot before it came off, and Miss Barlow was coming down for a few days, and then there was Miss Hetty’s twenty-first on the eighteenth, so there’d be plenty to do. Run off our feet, we’ll be, said Merionethshire, nodding a black nob of a head on which a white beret just managed to balance. Annie then asked: And when shall we hear of you gettin’ married, Miss Davies? and little Gladys, who was the sort that causes young men to hang themselves, giggled and said: Never, catch her tying herself up like some girls, but she added hastily that it was not for lack of asking.
Annie repeated most of this conversation to Mrs Theodore. The maids were used to Mrs Theodore by now, she was a known quantity, and her youthful looks and air of wanting something to happen had been so toned down by The Eagles to a proper sobriety that the three felt justified in occasionally indulging in a decorous gossip with her.
The news revived all Viola’s misery. The twenty-fifth! less than a month away. Nothing could happen to stop it now. And it was to be in London; she could not even have the unhappy consolation of being there to see him for the last time. Not that I would, really, she hastily thought; I could put off going up to see Shirley until the twenty-fifth, of course, and go, but I’m blowed if I do. Tagging round after him. Besides, I should only howl, and everybody would see.
But she made up her mind that she would have the London evening papers for that day, and the morning papers for the following day, in case there were any pictures of the wedding; and after lunch she took the bus into Chesterbourne to order them from a newsagent. She did not want everyone in Sible Pelden knowing that young Mrs Wither up The Eagles had ordered the London papers from Croggs, the sweetshop-tobacconist-newsagent in the village; they would go on wondering why until they guessed.
It was Saturday, a grey day, but quite different from the grey of winter, for the air was soft and the low distant hills beyond the town were distinct and close, as though in a picture, and in all the budding woods and hedges the birds were – not singing, it sounded like an absorbed talking, a discussing and planning in sweet chirrups.
I’ll pop in and see Catty, thought Viola, getting off the bus outside the Clock Tower. It’s nearly a quarter to three, old Burgess’ll be having lunch, and she set off down the High Street, her spirits rising, despite
her unhappiness, at the sight of the New Spring Millinery displayed in the shop windows and a sweet mysterious smell that wandered on the soft wind.
There was the usual jam by Woolworths’, and as she waited at the crossing, she glanced at a handsome car a little ahead of her in the traffic, and her heart leapt, for in it were Victor and Phyllis. The first thing she noticed was that both were sunburnt; the next was that they were unmistakably having a row.
Victor’s face suggested a thundercloud (it slipped into that expression easily these days) and Phyllis’s looked lightly, bitterly amused. They snapped remarks at each other, without turning round, while the car waited. Snap, snap snap snap snap snap, snap snap? went Phyllis’s mouth, and Victor’s retorted with three vicious snap snap snaps. Then the car moved on.
Viola could not help being very pleased. She and Shirley had noticed that people who snapped before they were married usually snapped afterwards, and if Victor and Phyllis snapped for two or three years, they might get a divorce. And then perhaps I could have him, thought Mrs Wither, going into Burgess and Thompson’s in a more hopeful mood, for her views on marriage, as on everything else, were primitive.
But then she caught sight of Miss Cattyman and forgot Victor, for Miss Cattyman was serving someone (fortunately old Mrs Buckle, who was half blind) with tears running down her face.
Miss Cattyman had been with Burgess and Thompson’s for fifty years. She had started with them when she was sixteen, and in a few days now she would be sixty-six. She remembered the firm, of course, long before Viola’s father had come into it; she could remember it when it was Patner and Hughes, and the girls had to work as long as Mr Patner wanted them to … long before Early Closing and all that came in … sweeping about the shop in trailing skirts that picked up the dust and straw blowing in from the unpaved High Street of Chesterbourne, and had to be brushed every evening before, dead tired, the girls crawled into bed.
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