Anne Severn and the Fieldings

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ANNE SEVERN
AND THE FIELDINGS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

TQBK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
AILAMIA • SAN VEANCOCO

MACMILLAN ft CO.. Lmxm

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA

HACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA. Lm

10B0N10

ANNE SEVERN
AND THE FIELDINGS

MAY SINCLAIR

Ntm f mrk
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1922
AU rights reserved

PBINTBD XN THB UNITED STATES OV AMERICA

CovniGBT, 1022,
By MAY SINCLAIR

Bet «p and «leetrotyp«d. PuUUhed Norember, 1983

r

FERRIS

PRINTING COMPANY

NEW YORK CITY

CONTENTS

PAGE

I Children 1

II Adolescents 36

III Anne and Jerrold 58

IV Robert 73

V Eliot and Anne 88

VI QUEENIE 103

VII Adeline 118

VIII Anne and Colin 131

IX Jerrold 139

X Eliot 156

XI Interim 167

XII CouN, Jerrold, and Anne . • 175

XIII Anne and Jerrold 186

XIV Maisie 204

XV Anne, Jerrold, and Maisie . . 222

XVI Anne, Maisie, and Jerrold . . 250

XVII Jerrold, Maisie, Anne, Eliot . 260

XVIII Jerrold and Anne . . . . 276

XIX Anne AND Eliot 290

XX Jerrold, Maisie, and Anne . . . 308

411890

ANNE SEVERN
AND THE FIELDINGS

V

CHILDREN

Anne Severn had come again to the FieldingB. This
time it was because her mother was dead.

She hadn't been in the house five minutes before she
asked "Where's Jerrold?"

"Fancy," they said, "her remembering."

And Jerrold had put his head in at the door and gone
out again when he saw her there in her black frock; and
somehow she had known he was afraid to come in
because her mother was dead.

Her father had brought her to Wyck-on-the-Hill that
morning, the day after the funeral. He would leave
her there when he went back to India.

She was walking now down the lawn between the two
tall men. They were taking her to the pond at the
bottom where the goldfish were. It was Jerrold's
father who held her hand and talked to her. He had
a nice brown face marked with a lot of little fine,
smiling strokes, and his eyes were quick and kind.

"You remember the goldfish, Anne?"

"I remember everything."

She had been such a Uttle girl before, and they said
she had forgotten.

But she remembered so well that she always thought
of Mr. Fielding as Jerrold's father. She remembered
the pond and the goldfish. Jerrold held her tight so

3

4 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

that she shouldn't tumble m. She remembered the big
grey and yellow house with its nine ball-topped gables;
and the lawn^ shut in by clipped yew hedges, then
spreading downwards, like a fan, from the last green
terrace where the two enormous peacocks stood, carved
out of the yew.

Where it lay flat and still under the green wall she
saw the tennis court. Jerrold was there, knocking balls
over the net to please little Colin. She could see him
fling back his head and laugh as Colin ran stumbling,
waving his racquet before him like a stiff flag. She
heard Colin squeal with excitement as the balls flew
out of his reach.

Her father was talking about her. His voice was
sharp and anxious.

"I don't know how she'll get on with your boys."
(He always talked about Anne as if she wasn't there.)
** Ten's an awkward age. She's too old for CoUn and
too young for Eliot and Jerrold."

She knew their ages. Colin was only seven. Eliot,
the clever one, was very big; he was fifteen. Jerrold
was thirteen.

She heard Jerrold's father answering in his quiet
voice.

'*You needn't worry. Jerryil look after Anne all
right."

"AndAdelme."

"Oh yes, of course, Adeline." (Only somehow he
made it soundias if she wouldn't.)

Adeline wa9 Mrs. Fielding. Jerrold's mother.

Anne wanted to get away from the quiet, serious men
and play with Jerrold; but their idea seemed to be that

ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS 5

it was too soon. Too soon after the funeral. It would
be all right to go quietly and look at the goldfish; but
no, not to play. When she thought of her dead
mother she was afraid to tell them that she didn't want
to go and look at the goldfish. It was as if she knew
that something sad waited for her by the pond at the
bottom. She would be safer over there where Jerrold
was laughing and shouting. She would play with him
and he wouldn't be afraid.

The day felt like a Sunday, quiet, quiet, except for
the noise of Jerrold's laughter. Strange and exciting,
his boy's voice rang through her sadness; it made her
turn her head again and again to look after him; it
called to her to forget and play.

Little slim brown minnows darted backwards and
forwards under the olive green water of the pond. And
every now and then the fat goldfish came nosing along,
orange, with silver patches, shming, making the water
light round them, stiff mouths wide open. When they
bobbed up, small bubbles broke from them and sparkled
and went out.

Anne remembered the goldfish; but somehow they
were not so fascinating as they used to be.

A queer plant grew on the rock border of the pond.
Green fleshy stems, with blmxt spikes all over them.
Each carried a tiny gold star at its tip. Thick, cold
juice would come out of it if you squeezed it. She
thought it would smell like lavender.

It had a name. She tried to think oWt.

Stonecrop. Stonecrop. Suddenly she remembered.

Her mother stood with her by the pond, dark and
white and slender. Anne held out her hands smeared

6 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

with the crushed flesh of the stonecrop; her mother
stooped and wiped them with her pockethandkerchief ,
and there was a smell of lavender. The goldfish went
swimming by m the oUve-green water.

Anne's sadness came over her again; sadness so heavy
that it kept her from crying; sadness that crushed her
breast and made her throat ache.

They went back up the lawn, quietly, and the day
felt more and more like Sunday, or like — like a
funeral day.

"She's very silent, this small daughter of yours,"
Mr. Fielding said.

"Yes," said Mr. Severn.

His voice came with a stiflf jerk, as if it choked him.
He remembered, too.

u

The grey and yellow flagstones of the terrace were
hot imder your feet.

r Jerrold's mother Is^y out there on a pile of cushions,
in the sun. She was very large and very beautiful.
She lay on her side, heaved up on one elbow. Under
her thin white gown you could see the big Unes of her
shoulder and hip, and of her long full thigh, tapering
to the knee.

Anne crouched beside her, uncomfortably, holding
her Uttle body away from the great warm mass among
the cushions.

Mrs. Fielding was aware of this shrinking. She put
out her arm and drew Anne to her side again.

"Lean back," she said. "Close. Closer."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 7

And Anne would lean close, politely, for a minute, and
then stiflf en and shrink away again when the soft arm
slackened.

Eliot Fielding (the clever one) lay on his stomach,
stretched out across the terrace. He leaned over a book :
Animal Biology. He was absorbed in a diagram of a
rabbit's heart and took no notice of his mother or of Anne.

Anne had been at the Manor five days, and she had got
used to Jerrold's mother's caresses. All but one. Every
now and then Mrs. Fielding's hand would stray to the
back of Anne's neck, where the short curls, black as her
frock, sprang out in a thick bunch. The fingers stirred
among the roots of Anne's hair, stroking, stroking,
lifting the bunch and letting it fall again. And when-
ever they did this Anne jerked her head away and held
it stiflBiy out of their reach.

She remembered how her mother's fingers, slender and
silk-skinned and loving, had done just that, and how
their touch went thrilling through the back of her neck,
how it made her heart beat. Mrs. Fielding's fingers
didn't thrill you, they were blimt and fumbling. Anne
thought : "She's no business to touch me like that. No
business to think she can do what mother did."

She was always doing it, always trying to be a mother
to her. Her father had told her she was going to try.
And Anne wouldn't let her. She would not let her.

"Why do you move your head away, darling?"

Anne didn't answer.

"You used to love it. You used to come bending
your fimny little neck and turning first one ear and
than the other. like a little cat. And now you won't
let me touch you."

8 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"No. No. Not — like that."

"Yes. Yes. like this. You don't remembeh"

"I do remember.'*

She felt the blmit fingers on her neck again and
started up. The beautiful, wilful woman lay back on
her cushions, smiling to herself.

"You're a funny little thing, aren't you?" she said.

Anne's eyes were glassed. She ^ook her head
fiercely and spilled tears.

Jerrold had come up on to the terrace. Colin
trotted after him. They were looking at her. Eliot
had raised his head from his book and was lookmg at
her.

"It is rotten of you, mater," he said, "to tease that
kid."

"I'm not teasing her. Really, Eliot, you do say
things — as if nobody but yourself had any sense.
You can run away now, Anne darling."

Anne stood staring, with wild animal eyes that saw
no place to run to.

It was Jerrold who saved her.

"I say, would you like to see my new buck rabbit?"

"Rather!"

He held out his hand and she ran off with him, along
the terrace, down the steps at the comer and up the
drive to the stable yard where the rabbits were. Colin
followed headlong.

And as she went Anne heard Eliot saying, "I've
sense enough to remember that her mother's dead."

In his worst tempers there was always some fierce
pity.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 9

• ••

lU

Mrs. Fielding gathered herself together and rose, with
dignity, still snaiUng. It was a smile of great sweetness,
infinitely remote from all discussion.

"It's much too hot here," she said. "You might
move the cushions down there under the beech-tree."

That, Eliot put it to himself, was just her way of
getting out of it. To EUot the irritating thing about
his mother was her dexterity in getting out. She never
lost her temper, and never repUed to any serious criti-
cism; she simply changed the subject, leaving you with
your disapproval on your hands.

In this EUot's young subtlety misled him. Adeline
Fielding's mind was not the clever, calculating thing
that, at fifteen, he thought it. Her one simple idea
was to be happy and, as a means to that end, to have
people happy about her. His father, or Anne's father,
could have told him that all her ideas were simple as
feelings and impromptu. Impulse moved her, one
moment, to seize on the faithful, defiant Uttle heart of
Anne, the next, to get up out of the sim. Anne's tears
spoiled her bright world; but not for long. Coolness
was now the important thing, not Anne and not Anne's
mother. As for Eliot's disapproval, she was no longer
aware of it.

"Oh, to be cool, to be cool again! Thank you, my

son."

Eliot had moved all the cushions down under the tree,
scowlmg as he did it, for he knew that when his mother
was really cool he would have to get up and move them
back again.

10 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

With the perfect curve of a great supple animal, she
turned and settled in her lair, under her tree.

Presently, down the steps and across the lawn, Anne's
father came towards her, grave, handsome, and alone.

Handsome even after fifteen years of India. Hand-
somer than when he was young. More distinguished.
Eyes lighter in the sallowish bronze. She liked his lean,
eager, deerbound's face, ready to start off, sniffing the
trail. A Uttle strained, leashed now, John's eagerness.
But that was how he used to come to her, with thaj^ look
of being ready, as if they could do things together.

She had tried to find his youth in Anne's^ace; but
Anne's blackness and whiteness were her mother's;
her little nose was still soft and vague; you couldn't tell
what she would be like in five years' time. Still, there
was something; the same strange quaUty; the same
forward-springing grace.

Before he reached her, AdeUne was smiling again. A
smile of the delicate, instinctive mouth, of the blue eyes
shining between curled lids, imder dark eyebrows; of the
innocent white nose; of the whole soft, mill^-white face.
Even her sleek, darb hair smiled, shining. She was
conscious of her power to make him come, t* her, to
make herself felt through everything, even through his
bereavement.

The subtle Eliot, looking over the terrace wall,
observed her and thought, "The mater's jolly pleased
with herself. I wonder why."

It struck EUot also that a Conmiissioner of Ambala
and a Member of the Legislative Coimcil and a widower
ought not to look like Mr. Severn. He was too Uvely,
too adventurous.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 11

He turned again to the enthralling page. ^'The
student should lay open the theoracic cavity of the
rabbit and dissect away the thymous gland and other
tissues which hide the origin of the great vessels; so
as to display the heart . . ."

Yearp, the vet, would show him how to do that.

iv

'^His name's Benjy. He's a butterfly smut/' said
Jerrold.

The rabbit was quiet now. He sat in Anne's arms,
couching, his f orepaws laid on her breast. She stooped
and kissed his soft nose that went in and out, pushing
against her mouth, in a delicate palpitation. He was
white, with black ears and a black oval at the root of
his tail. Two wing-shaped patches went up from his
nose like a moustache. That was his butterfly smut.

"He is sweet," she said.

Colin said it after her in his shrill child's voice:
"He is sweet." Colin had a habit of repeating what
you said. Jt was his way of joining in the conversation.

He stretched up his hand and stroked Benjy, and Anne
felt theVkibbit's heart beat sharp and quick against her
breast. A shiver went through Benjy's body.

Anne kissed him again. Her heart swelled and shook
with maternal tenderness.

"Why does he tremble so?"

"He's frightened. Don't touch him, Col-Col."

Colin couldn't see an animal without wanting to
stroke it. He put his hands in his pockets to keep them
out of temptation. By the way Jerrold looked at him
you saw how he loved him.

12 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

About Colin there was something beautiful and break-
able. Dusk-white face; Uttle tidy nose and mouth;
dark hair and eyes like the minnows swimming under
the green water. But Jerrold's face was strong; and
he had funny eyes that made you keep looking at him.
They were blue. Not tiresomely blue, blue all the time,
like his mother^s, but secretly and surprisingly blue, a
blue that flashed at you and hid again, moving queerly
in the set squareness of his face, presenting at every turn
a different Jerrold. He had a pleasing straight up and
down nose, his one constant feature. The nostrils
slanted slightly upward, making shadows there. You
got to know these things after watching hun attentively.
Anne loved his mouth best of all, cross one minute (only
never with Colin), sweet the next, tilted at the comers,
ready for his laughter.

He stood close beside her in his white flannels,
straight and slender. He was looking at her, just as he
looked at Colin.

" Do you like him?" he said.

"Who? Colm?"

"No. Benjy."

"I love him:'

"I'll give him to you if you'd like to have him."

"For my own? To keep?"

"Rather."

"Don't you want him?"

"Yes. But I'd like you to have him."

"Oh, Jerrold."

She knew he was giving her Benjy because her
mother was dead.

ANNE»eEVER]* AND THE FIELDINGS 13

• • '. • • •

"I've got the grey doe, and the fawn, and the lop-
ear," he sidd.

"Oh — I a/ioZZ love him."

"You mustn't hold him too tight. And you must be
careful not to touch his stomach. If you squeeze him
there he'U die."

* '''Yes. If you squeeze his stomach he'll die," Colin
cried excitedly.

"I'll be ever so careful."

They put him down, and he ran violently round and
round, drumming with his hind legs on the floor of the
fihed, startling the does that couched, like cats, among
the lettuce leaves and carrots.

"When the little rabbits come half of them will be
yours, because he'll be their father."

"Oh—"

For the first time since Friday week Anne was happy.
She loved the rabbit, she loved Uttle Colin. And more
than anybody or anything she loved Jerrold.

Yet afterwards, in her bed in the night nursery, when
she thought of her dead mother, she lay awake crjring;
quietly, so that nobody could hear.

It was Robert Fielding's birthday. Anne was to
dine late that evening, sitting beside him. He said that
was his birthday treat.

Anne had made him a penwiper of green cloth with a
large bluabead in the middle for a knob. He was going
to keep it for ever. He had no candles on his birthday
cake at tea, because there would have been too many.

The big hall of the Manor was furnished Uke a room.

14 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

The wide oak staircase came down into it from a gallery
that went all around. They were waiting there for
Mrs. Fielding who was always a little late. That made
you keep on thinking about her. They were thinking
about her now.

Up there a door opened and shut. Something moved
along the gallery like a large light, and Mrs. Fielding
came down the stairs, slowly, prolonging her effect.
She was dressed in her old pearl-white gown. A rope of
pearls went roimd her neck and hung between her
breasts. Roll above roll of hair jutted out at the
back of her head; across it, the foremost curl rose like
a comb, shining. Her eyes, intensely blue in her milk-
white face, sparkled between two dark wings of hair.
Her mouth smiled its enchantiag and enchanted smile.
She was aware that her husband and John watched her
from stair to stair; she was aware of their men's eyes,
darkening. Then suddenly she was aware of John's
daughter.

Anne was coming towards her across the hall, drawn
by the magic, by the eyes, by the sweet flower smell
that drifted (not lavender, not lavender). She stood
at the foot of the staircase looking up. The heavenly
thing swept down to her and she broke into a cry.

"Oh, you're beautiful. You're beautiful."

Mrs. Fielding stopped her progress.

"So are you, you Uttle darling."

She stooped quickly and kissed her, holding her tight
to her breast, crushed down into the bed of the flower
scent. Anne gave herself up, caught by the sweetness
and the beauty.

"You rogue," said Adeline. "At last I've got you.'*

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 15

She couldn't bear to be repulsed, to have anything
about her, even a cat or a dog, that had not surrendered.

vi

Every evening, soon after Colin's Nanna had tucked
Anne up in her bed and left her, the door of the night
nursery would open, letting a light in. When Anne
saw the light coming she shut her eyes and burrowed
under the blankets, she knew it was Auntie Adeline
trying to be a mother to her. (You called them Auntie
Adeline aiid Uncle Robert to please them, though they
weren't relations.)

Every night she would hear Aunt Adeline's feet on the
floor and her candle clattering on the chest of drawers,
she would feel her hands drawing back the blankets and
her face bending down over her. The mouth would
brush her forehead. And she would lie stiflf and still,
keeping her eyes tight shut.

To-night. she heard voices at the door and somebody
else's feet going tip-toe behind Aunt Adeline's. Some-
body else whispered "She's asleep." That was Jerrold.
Jerrold. She felt him standing beside his mother,
looking at her, and her eyeUds fluttered; but she lay

stm.

"She isn't asleep at all," said Aunt Adeline. "She's
shamming, the little monkey."

Jerrold thought he knew why. He turned intd the
old niu^ery that was the schoolroom now, and found
Eliot there, examining a fly^s 1^ under his microscope.
It was EUot that he wanted.

"I say, you know. Mum's making a joUy mistake
about that kid. Trying to go on as if she was Anne's

16 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

mother. You can see it makes her sick. It would me,
if my mother was dead."

Eliot looked as if he wasn't Ustening, absorbed in his
fly's leg.

"Somebody's got to tell her."

"Are you going to," said Eliot, "or shall I?"

"Neither. I shall get Dad to. He'U do it best.'

99

vu

Robert Fielding didn't do it all at once. He put it
off till Adeline gave him his chance. He found her
alone in the Ubrary and she had begun it.

"Robert, I don't know what to do about that child."

"Which child?"

"Anne. She's been here five weeks, and I've done
everything I know, and she hasn't shown me a scrap of
affection. It's pretty hard if I'm to house and feed the
little thing and look after her like a mother and get
nothing. Nothing but half a cold little face to kiss
night and morning. It isn't good enough."

"For Anne?"

"For me, my dear. Trying to be a mother to some-
body else's child who doesn't love you, and isn't going
to love you."

"Don't try then."

"Don't try?"

"Don't try and be a mother to her. That's what
Ann^ doesn't Uke."

They had got as far as that when John Severn stood
in the doorway. He was retreating before their appear-
ance of communion when she called him back.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 17

"Don't go, John. We want you. Here's Robert
telling me not to be a mother to Anne."

"And here's Adelme worrymg because she thinks
Anne isn't going to love her."

Severn sat down, considering it.

"It takes time," he said.

She looked at him, smihng under lowered brows.

"Time to love me?"

"Time for Anne to love you. She — she's so
desperately faithful."

The dressing-bell clanged from the belfry. Robert
left them to finish a discussion that he found em-
barrassing.

"I said I'd try to be a mother to her. I have tried,
John; but the Uttle thing won't let me."

"Don't try too hard. Robert's right. Don't —
don't be a mother to her."

"What am I to be?"

"Oh, anything you like. A presence. A heavenly
apparition. An impossible ideal. Anything but that."

"Do you think she's going to hold out for ever?"

" Only against that. As long as she remembers. It
puts her off."

"She doesn't object to Robert being a father to her."

"No. Because he's a better father than I am; and
she knows it."

Adeline flushed. She understood the impUcation
and was hurt, unreasonably. He saw her unreasonable-
ness and her pain.

"My dear Adeline, Anne's mother will always be
Anne's mother. I was never anywhere beside Alice.
I've had to choose between the Government of India

18 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PDELDINGS

and my daughter. You'll observe that I don't try to
be a father to Anne; and that, in consequence^ Anne
likes me. But she'll love Robert. "

"And 'like' me? If I don't try."

"Give her time. Give her time."

He rose, smiling down at her.

"You think I'm unreasonable?"

"The least bit in the world. For the moment. "

"My dear John, if I didn't love your little girl I
wouldn't care. "

"Love her. hove her. She'll love you too, in her
rum way. She's fighting you now. She wouldn't
fight if she didn't feel she was beaten. Nobody Gould
hold out against you long. "

She looked at the clock.

"Heavens! I must go and dress."

She thought: "He didn't hold out against me, poor
dear, five minutes. I suppose he'll always remember
that I jilted him for Robert."

And now he wanted her to see that if Anne's mother
would be always Anne's mother, his wife would be
always his wife. Was he desperately faithful, too?
Always?

How could he have been? It was characteristic of
Alice Severn that when she had to choose between her
husband and her daughter she had chosen Anne. It
was characteristic of John that when he had to choose
between his wife and his Government, he had not
chosen Alice. He must have had adventures out in
India, conducted with the discretion becoming in a Com-
missioner and a Member of the Legislative Council, but
adventiu^. Perhaps he was going back to one of them.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 19

Severn dressed hastily and went into the schoobroom
where Anne sat reading in her solitary hour between
supper time and bed-time. He took her on his knee,
and she snuggled there, rubbing her head against his
shoulder. He thought of Adeline, teasing, teasing for
the child's caresses, and every time repulsed.

"Anne," he said, "don't you think you can love
Auntie Adeline?"

Anne straightened herself. She looked at him with
candid eyes. "I don't know. Daddy, really, if I can. "

"Can't you love her a little?"

"I — I would, if she wouldn't try "

"Try?"

"To do Uke Mummy did."

Robert was right. He knew it, but he wanted to be
sure.

Anne went on. "It's no use, you see, her trying.
It only makes me think of Mummy more."

"Don't you v>ant to think of her?"

"Yes. But I want to think by myself, and Auntie
Adeline keeps on getting in the way. "

"Still, she's awfully kind to you, isn't she?"

"AwfuUy."

"And you must't hurt her feelings."

"Havel? I didn't mean to."

"You wouldn't if you loved her."

**Yau haven't ever hurt her feelings, have you.
Daddy?"

"No."

"Well, you see, it's because I keep on thinking about
Mummy. I want her back — I want her so awfully."

"I know, Anne, I know."

20 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

Anne's mind burrowed under, turning on its tracks,
coming out suddenly.

"Do you love Aimtie Adeline, Daddy?*'

It was terrible, but he owned that he had brought it
on himself.

"I can't say. I've known her such a long time;
before you were bom. "

"Before you married Mmnmy!"

"Yes."

"Well, won't it do if I love Uncle Robert and Eliot
and Colin? AndJerrold?"

That night he said to Adeline, "I know who'll take
my place when I'm gone."

"Who? Robert?" ^

"No,Jerrold."

In another week he had sailed for India and Ambala*

...
vm

Jerrold was brave.

When Colin upset the schoolroom lamp Jerrold
wrapped it in the tablecloth and threw it out of the
window just in time. He put the chain on Billy, the
sheep-dog, when he went mad and snapped at every-
body. It seemed odd that Jerrold should be frightened.

A minute ago he had been happy, rolling over and
over on the grass, shouting with laughter while Sandy,
the Aberdeen, jumped on him, growling his merry
puppy's growl and biting the balled fists that pushed
him off.

They were all out on the lawn.' Anne waited for
Jerry to get up and take her into Wyck, to buy choco-
lates.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 21

Every time Jerrold laughed his mother laughed too» a
throaty, girlish giggle.

"I love Jerry's laugh," she said. "It's the nicest
noise he makes."

Then, suddenly, she stopped it. She stopped it with
a word.

"If you're going into Wyck, Jerry, you might tell
Yearp "

Yearp.

He got up. His face was very red. He looked
mournful and frightened too. Yes, frightened.

"I — can't, Mother,"

"You can perfectly well. Tell Yearp to come and
look at Pussy's ears, I think she's got canker."

"She hasn't," said Jerry defiantly.

"She joUy well has," said EUot.

"Rot."

"You only say that because you don't like to think
she's got it."

"EUot can go himself. He's fond of Yearp."

"You'll do as you're told, Jerry. It's downright
cowardice."

"It isn't cowardice, is it. Daddy?"

"Well," said his father, "it isn't exactly courage."

"Whatever it is," his mother said, "you'll have to get
over it. You go on as if nobody cared about poor
Binky but yourself."

Binky was Jerry's dog. He had run into a motor-
bicycle in the Easter holidays and hurt his back, so that
Yearp, the vet, had had to come and give him chloro-
form. That was why Jerrold was afraid of Yearp.
When he saw him he saw Binky with his nose in the

22 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIBLDINQS

cup of chloroform; he heard him snorting out his last
breath. And he couldn't bear it.

^'I could send one of the men/' his father was sajring.

''Don't encourage him, Robert. He's got to face
it."

"Yes, Jerrold, you'd better go and get it over. You
can't go on funking it for ever."

Jerrold went. But he went alone, he wouldn't let
Anne go with him. He said he didn't want her to be
mixed up with it.

"He means/' said Eliot, "that he doesn't want to
think of Yearp every time he sees Anne."

IX

It was true that Eliot was fond of Yearp's society.
He would spend hours with him, learning how to dis-
sect frogs and rabbits and pigeons. He drove about
the country with Yearp seeing the sick animals, the
ewes at lambing time and the cows at their calving.
And he spent half the midsummer holidays reading
Animal Biology and drawing diagrams of frogs' hearts
and pigeons' brains. He said he wasn't going to Oxford
or Cambridge when he left Cheltenham; he was going
to Barts. He wanted to be a doctor. But his mother
said he didn't know what he'd want to be in three years'
time. She thought him awful, with his frogs' hearts
and horrors.

Next to Jerrold and little Colin Anne loved Eliot.
He seemed to know when she was thinking about her
mother and to understai^d. He took her into the
woods to look for squirrels; he showed her tiie wild-

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 23

flowers and told her all their names : bugloss, and lady's
smock and speedwell, king-cup, willow herb and meadow
sweet, crane's bill and celandine.

One day they found in the garden a tiny egg-shaped
shell made of gold-coloured lattice work. When they
put it under the microscope they saw inside it a thing
like a green egg. Every day they watched it; it put
out two green horns, and a ridge grew down the middle
of it, and one morning they found the golden shell
broken. A tong, elegant fly with slender wings cra^ded
beside it.

When Benjy died of eating too much lettuce EUot was
sorry. Aimt Adeline said it was all put on and that he
really wanted to cut him up and see what he was made
of. But EUot didn't. He said Benjy was sacred.
That was because he knew they loved him. And he
dug the grave and Uned it with moss and told Aunt
Adeline to shut up when she said it ought to have been
lettuce leaves.

Aimt Adeline complained that it was hard that EUot
couldn't be nice to her when he was her favorite.

"little Anne, Uttle Anne, what have you done to my
Eliot?" She was always saying things like that.
Anne couldn't think what she meant tiU Jerrold told
her she was the only kid that EUot had ever looked at.
The big Hawtrey girl from MedUcote would have given
her head to be in Anne's shoes.

But Anne didn't care. Her love for Jerrold was
sdiarp and exciting. She brought tears to it and temper.
It was mixed up with God and music and the deaths of
animals, and stmsets and aU sorrowful and beautiful
and mysterious things. Thinking about her mother

24 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

made her think about Jerrold; but she never thought
about EUot at all when he wasn't there.

She would run away from EUot any mmute if she
heard Jerrold eallhig. It was Jerrold, Jerrold, all the
time, said Axmt Adeline.

And when EUot was busy with his microscope and
Jerrold had turned from her to Colin, there was Uncle
Robert, He seemed to know the moments when she
wanted him. Then he would take her out riding with
him over the estate that stretched from Wyck across the
valley of the Speed and beyond it for miles over the
hiUs. And he would show her the reaping machines'at
work, and the great carthorses, and the prize bullocks
in their staUs at the Manor Farm. And Anne told him
her secret, the secret she had told to nobody but Jerrold.

''Some day," she said, "I shaU have a farm, with
horses and cows and pigs and Uttle calves."

''ShaU you Uke that?"

"Yes," said Anne. "I would. Only it can't happen
tUl Grandpapa's dead. And I don't want him to die."

They were saying now that CoUn was wonderful.
He was only seven, yet he could play the piano Uke a
grown-up person, very fast and with loud noises in the
bass. And he could sing Uke an angel. When you
heard him you could hardly beUeve that he was a Uttle
boy who cried sometimes and was afraid of ghosts.
Two masters came out from Cheltenham twice a week
to teach him. EUot said Colin would be a professional
when he grew up, but his mother said he should be
nothing of the sort and EUot wasn't to go putting :

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 25

nonsense like that into his head. Still, she was proud
of Colm when his hands went poundmg and flashing over
the keys, Anne had to give up practising because she
did it so badly that it hurt Colin to hear her.

He wasn't in the least conceited about his playing,
not even when Jerrold stood beside him and looked on
and said, "Clever Col-Col. Isn't he a wonderful
kid? Look at him. Look at his Uttle hands, all over
the place."

He didn't think playing was wonderful. He thought
the things that Jerrold did were wonderful. With his
child's legs and arms he tried to do the things that Jerrold
did. They told him he would have to wait nine years
before he could do them. He was always talking about
what he would do m nme years' time.

And there was the day of the walk to High Slaughter,
through the valley of the Speed to the valley of the
Windlode, five miles there and back. Eliot and Jerrold
and Anne had tried to sneak out when Colin wasn't look-
ing; but he had seen them and came runnmg after them
down the field, calling to them to let him come. Eliot
shouted "We can't, Col-Col, it's too far," but Colin
looked so pathetic, standing there in the big field, that
Jerrold couldn't bear it.

"I think," he said, "we might let him come."

"Yes. Let him," Anne said.

"Rot. He can't walk it."

"I can," said Colin. "I can."

"I tell you he can't. If he's tired he'll be sick in the
night and then he'll say it's ghosts."

Colin's mouth trembled.

26 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

''It's all right, Col-Col, you're coming/' J^nold
held out his hand.

''Well/' said Eliot, "if he crumples up you can carry
him."

"I can," said Jerrold.

"So can I," said Anne.

" Nobody," said Colin " shall carry me. I can walk."

Eliot went on grumbling while Colin trotted happily
beside them. "You're a fearful ass, Jerrold. You're
simple ruining that kid. He thinks he can come but-
ting into everything. Here's the whole afternoon
spoiled for all three of us. He can't walk. You'll see
he'll drop out in the first mile."

"I shan't, Jerrold."

And he didn't. He struggled on down the fields to
Upper Speed and along the river-meadows to Lower
Speed and Hayes Mill, and from Hayes Mill to High
Slaughter. It was when they started to walk back that
his legs betrayed him, slackening first, then running,
because running was easier than walking, for a change.
Then dra^ng. Then being dragged between Anne and
Jerrold (for he refused to be carried) . Then staggering,
stumbling, stopping dead; his child's mouth drooping.

Then Jerrold carried him on his back with his hands
clasped under Colin's soft hips. Colin's body slipped
every minute and had to be jerked up again; and when
it slipped his arms tightened round Jerrold's neck,
strangling him.

At last Jerrold, too, staggered and stumbled and
stopped dead.

"I'll take him," said Eliot. He forbore, nobly, to say

I told you so."

ii

V

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 27

And by turns they carried him^ from the valley of the
Windlode to the vsJley of the Speed, past Hayes Mill,
tiirough Lower Speed, Upper Speed, and up the fields
to Wyck Manor. Then up the stairs to the schoolroom,
pursued by their mother's cries.

"Oh Col-Col, my little Col-Col! What have you
done to hun, Eliot?''

Eliot bore it like a lamb.

Only after they had left Colin in the schoolroom, he
turned on Jerrold.

"Some day," he said, "Col-Col will be a perfect
nuisance. Then you and Anne'U have to pay for it."

"Why me and Anne?"

"Because you'll both be fools enough to keep on
^ving in to him."

"I suppose," said Jerrold bitterly, "you think you're
clever."

Adeline came out and overheard him and made a
scene in the gallery before Pinkney, the footman, who
was bringing in the schoolroom tea. She said EUot
was clever enough and old enough to know better. They
were all old enough. And Jerrold said it was his fault,
not Eliot's, and Anne said it was hers, too. And Ade-
line declared that it was all their faults and she would
have to speak to their father. She kept it up long after
Eliot and Jerrold had retreated to the bathroom. If
it had been anybody but her little Col-Col. She
wouldn't have him dragged about the country till he
dropped.

She added that Col-Col was her favourite.

28 ANNS SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

xi

It was the last week of the hoUdays. Rain had come
with the west wind. The hills were drawn back behind
thick sheets of glassy rain. Shining spears of rain
dashed themselves against the west windows. Jets of
ram rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace.
Rain ran before the wind in a silver scud along the
flagged path under the south front.

The wind made hard, thudding noises as if it poxmded
invisible bodies in the air. It screamed high above the
drumming and hissmg of the ram.

It excited the children.

From three o'clock till tea-time the sponge fight
stormed up and down the passages. The house was
filled with the sound of thudding feet and shrill laughter.

Adeline lay on the sofa in the library. EUot was
with her there.

She was amused, but a Uttle plaintive when they
rushed in to her.

"It's perfectly awful the noise you children are
making. I'm tired out with it."

Jerrold flxmg himself on her. "Tired? What must it?e
be?"

But he wasn't tired. His madness still worked in him.
It sought some supreme expression.

"What can we play at next?" said Anne.

"What can we play at next?" said Colin.

"Something quiet, for goodness sake," said his
mother.

They were very quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as
they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIKLDINGS 29

they watched Pmkney's umocent approach. The
sponge caught him — with a delightful, squelching
flump — full and fair on the top of his sleek head.

Anne shrieked with delight. "Oh Jerry, did you hear
him say *Damn'?"

They rushed back to the Ubrary to tell EUot. But
EUot couldn't see that it was funny. He said it was a
rotten thing to do.

"When he's a servant and can't do anything to w."

"I never thought of that," said Jerrold. (It was
pretty rotten.) ... "I could ask him to bowl to me
and let him get me out."

"He'd do that in any case."

"Still — I'U have asked him."

But it seemed that Pinkney was in no mood to think
of cricket, and they had to be content with hegging
his pardon, which he gave, as he said, "freely." Yet it
struck them that he looked sadder than a booby-trap
should have made him.

It was just before bed-time that Eliot told them the
awful thing.

"I suppose you know," he said,' "that Pinkney's
mother's dying?"

"I didn't," said Jerrold. "But I migjht have known.
I notice that when you're excited, really excited, some-
thing awful's boimd to happen. . . . Don't cry, Anne.
It was beastly of us, but we didn't know."

"No. It's no use crying," said EUoi. "You can't do
anything."

"That's it," Anne sobbed. "If we only could. If
we could go to him and tell him we wouldn't have done
it if we'd known."

30 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDING8

" You jdly well can't. It would only bother the poor
chap. Besides, it was Jerry did it. Not you."

" It was me. I filled the sponge. We did it together."

What they had done was beastly — setting booby-
traps for Pinkney, and laughing at him when his mother
was dying — but they had done it together. The pain
of Jier sin had sweetness m it smee she shared it with
Jerry. Jerry's arm was roimd her as she went upstairs
to bed, crying. They sat together on her bed, holding
each other's hands; they faced it together.

"You'd never have done it, Anne, if I hadn't made
you."

"I wouldn't mind so much if we hadn't laughed at
hun."

"Well, we couldn't help that. And it wasn't as if we'd
knoWn."

" If only we could tell him "

"We can't. He'd hate us to go talking to him about
his mother."

"He'd hate us."

Then Anne had an idea. They couldn't talk to Pink-
ney but they could write. That wouldn't hurt him.
Jerry fetched a pencil and paper from the schoolroom;
and Anne wrote.

"Dear Pinkney: We didn't know. We wouldn't have
done it if we'd known. We are awfully sorry.

Yours truly,

Anne Severn.

P. S. You aren't to answer this.

Jerbold Fielding."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS 31

Half an hour later Jerrqid knocked at heit door.

"Anne — are you in bed?"
^ She got up and stood with him at the door in her
innocent nightgown.

"It's all right/' he said. "I've seen Pinkney. He
says we aren't to worry. He knew we wouldn't have
done it if we'd known."

"Was he cry ng?"

"No. Laughing. • • . All the same, it'll be a lesson
to us," he said.

xii

"Where's Jerrold?"

Robert Fielding called from the dogcart that waited
by the porch. Eliot sat beside him, very stiflf and
straight, painfully aware of his mother who stood cfa the
flagged path below, and made yearning faces at him,
doing her best, at this last moment, to destroy his
morsde. Colin sat behind him by Jerrold's place, tearful
but excited. He was to go with them to the station.
Eliot tried hard to look as if he didn't care; and, as his
mother said, he succeeded beautifully.

It was the end of the holidays.

"Adeline, you might see where Jerrold is,"

She went into the house and saw Anne and Jerrold
coming slowly down the stairs together from the
gallery. At the turn they stopped and looked at each
other, and suddenly he had her in his arms. They
kissed, with close, quick kisses and then stood apart,
listening.

Adeline went back. "The monkey," she thought;
"and I who told her she didn't know how to do it."

,v'

32 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

JeiTold ran out, very red in the face and defiant. He
gave himself to his mother's large embrace, broke from
it, &jid climbed into the dogcart. The mare boimded
forward, Jerrold and Eliot raised their hats, shouted
and were gone.

Adeline watched while the long lines of the beech-
trees narrowed on them, till the dogcart swung out
between the ball-topped pillars of the Park gates.

Last time their going had been nothing to her. To-
day she could hardly bear it. She wondered why.

She turned and found little Anne standing beside her.
They moved suddenly apart. Each had seen the
other's tears.

•• •
xm

Outside Colin's window the tree rocked in the wind.
A branch brushed backwards and forwards, it tapped
on the pane. Its black shadow shook on the grey,
moonlit wall.

Jerrold's empty bed showed white and dreadful in
the moonlight, covered with a sheet. Colin was
frightened.

A narrow passage divided his room from Anne's.
The doors stood open. He called "Anne! Aime!"

A light thud on the floor of Anne's room, then the soft
padding of naked feet, and Anne stood beside him in her
white nightgown. Her hair rose in a black ruflf roimd
her head, her eyes were very black in the sharp white-
ness of her face.

"Are you frightened, Colin?"

"No. I'm not exactly frightened, but I think there's
something there."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQ3 38

"It's nothing. Only the tree."

"I mean — in Jerry's bed."

"Oh no, Colin."

"Dare you," he said, "sit on it?"

"Of course I dare. Now you see. Now you won't
be frightened."

"You know," Colin said, "I don't mind a bit when
Jerrold's there. The ghosts never come then^ because
he frightens them away."

The clock struck ten. They coxmted the strokes.
Anne still sat on Jerrold's bed with her knees drawn up
to her chin and her arms clasped round them.

"I'll tell you a secret, " Colin said. "Only you
mustn't tell."

"I won't."

"ReaUy and truly?"

"Really and truly."

"I think Jerrold's the wonderfullest person in the
whole world. When I grow up I'm going to be like
hun."

"You couldn't be."

"Not now. But when I'm grown-up, I say."

"You couldn't be. Not even then. Jerrold can't
sing aijd he can't play."

"I don't care."

"But you mustn't do what he can't if you want to
be like him."

"When I'm singing and playing I shall pretend I'm
not."

"You needn't. You won't ever be him."

"I — shall."
Col-Col, I don't want you to be like him. I

((

34 ANNE SEVEBN AND THE FIELDIN08

don't want anybody else to be like Jerrold in the whole
world."
"But," said Colin, "I shall be like him-"

xiv

Every night Adeline still came to see Anne in bed.
The little thing had left off pretending to be asleep.
She lay with eyes wide open, yielding sweetly to the
embrace.

To-night her eyelids lay shut, slack on her eyes, and
Adeline thought "She's really asleep, the little lamb.
Better not touch her."

She was going away when a soimd stopped her. A
sound of sobbing.

"Anne — Anne — are you crying?"

A tremulous drawing-in of breath, a shaking imder
the bed-clothes. On Anne's white cheek the black
eyelashes were parted and pointed with her tears.
She had been crying a long time.

Adeline knelt down, her face against Anne's face.

"What is it darling? Tell me."

Anne shivered.

"Oh Anne, I wish you loved me. You don't, ducky,
a Uttle bit."

"I do. I do. Really and truly."

"Then give me a kiss. The proper kind."

Anne gave her the tight, deep kiss that was the
proper kind.

"Now — tell me what it is." She knew by Anne's
surrender that, this time, it was not her mother.

"I don't know."

"You do know. Is it Jerry? Do you want Jerry? "

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 35

At the name Anne's crying broke out again, savage,
violent.

Adeline held her close and let the storm beat itself out
against her heart.

''You can't want him more than I do, Uttle Anne."

''You'll have him when he comes back. And I
shan't. I shall be gone."

You'll come again, darling. You'll come again."

It

II

ADOLESCENTS

For the next two years Anne came again and again,
staying four months at Wyck and four months in
London with Grandmamma Severn and Aimt Emily,
and four months with Grandpapa Everitt at the Essex

When she was twelve they sent her to school in
Switzerland for three years. Then back to Wyck, after
eight months of London and Essex in between.

Only the times at Wyck counted for Anne. Her
calendar showed them clear with all their incidents
recorded; thick black lines blotted out the other days,
as she told them off, one by one. Three years and eight
months were scored through in this manner.

Anne at fifteen was a tall girl with long hair tied in a
big black bow at the nape of her neck. Her vague nose
had settled into the forward-raking line that made her
the dark likeness of her father. Her body was slender
but solid; the strong white neck carried her head high
with the poise of a runner. She looked at least seventeen
in her clean-cut coat and skirt. Probably she wouldn't
look much older for another fiifteen years.

Robert Fielding stared with incredulity at this figure
which had pursued him down the platform at Wyck
and now seized him by the arm.

''Is it — is it Anne?"

36

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 37

*'0f course it is. Why, didn't you expect me? "

"I think I expected something smaller and rather

less grown-up/'

"I'm not grown-up. I'm the same as ever."
"Well, you're not little Anne any more."
She squeezed his arm, hanging on it in her old loving
way. "No. But I'm still me. And I'd have known you
anywhere."

"What? With my grey hair?"
"I loveyom* grey hair."

It made him handsome, more lovable than ever.
Anne loved it as she loved his face, tanned and tightened
by Sim and wind, the long hard-drawn lines, the thin,
kind mouth, the clear, greenish brown eyes, quick and
kind.

Colin stood by the dogcart in the station yard.
Colin was charged. He was no longer the excited child
who came rushing to you. He stood for you to come to
him, serious and shy. His child's face was passing from
prettiness to a fine, sombre beauty.

"What's happened to Col-Col? He's all different? "
" Is he? Wait," Uncle Robert said, " till you've seen
Jerrold."
"Oh, is Jerrold going to be different, too?"
"I'm afraid he'll look a little different." ^
" I don't care," she said. " He'll be hun."
She wanted to come back and find everybody and
everything the same, looking exactly as she had left
them. What they had once been for her they must al-
ways be.

They drove slowly up Wyck Hill. The tree-tops
meeting overhead made a green tunnel. You came out

38 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

suddenly into the sunlight at the top. The road was
the same. They passed by the Unicom Inn and the
Post Office^ through the narrow crooked street with the
church and churchyard at the timi; and so into the grey
and yellow Market Square with the two tall elms stand-
ing up on the Uttle green in the comer. They passed
the Queen's Head; the powder-blue sign hung out from
the yellow front the same as ever. Next came the
fountain and the four forked roads by the signpost,
then the dip of the hill to the left and the grey ball-
topped stone pillars of the Park gates on the right.

At the end of the beech avenue she saw the house;
the three big, sharp-pointed gables of the front: the
little gable underneath in the middle, jutting out over
the porch. That was the bay of Aimt Adeline's bed-
room. She used to lean out of the lattice windows and
call to the children in the garden. The house was the
same.

So were the green terraces and the wide, flat-topped
yew walls, and the great peacocks carved out of the
yew; and beyond them the lawn, flowing out imd^
banks of clipped yew down to the goldfish pond. They
were things that she had seen again and again in sleep
and memory; things that had made her heart ache
thinking of them; that took her back and back, and
wouldn't let her be. She had only to leave off what
she was doing and she saw them; they swam before her
eyes, covering the Swiss mountains, the flat Essex
fields, the high white London houses. They waited for
her at the waking end of dreams.

She had found them again.

A gap in the green walls led into the flower garden,

ANNB SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS 39

and there^ down the path between tall rows of phlox
and larkspurs and anchusa, of blue heaped on blue^
Aunt Adeline came holding up a tall bunch of flowers^
blue on her white gown, blue on her own milk-white
and blue. She came, looking like a beautiful girl; the
same, the same; Anne had seen her in dreams, walking
like that, tall among the tall flowers.

She never hurried to meet you; hurrying would have
spoiled the beauty of her movement; she came slowly,
absent-mindedly, stopping now and then to pluck yet
another of the blue spires. Robert stood still in the
path to watch her. She was smiling a long way ofif,
intensely aware of him.

"Is that Anne?" she said.

"Yes, Aimtie, really Anne."

"Well, you are a big girl, aren't you?"

She kissed her three times and smiled, looking away
again over her flower-beds. That was the difference
between Aimt Adeline and Uncle Robert. His eyes made
you important; they held you all the time he talked
to you; when he smiled, it was for you altogether and
not for himself at all. Her eyes never looked at you
long; her smile wandered, it was half for you and half
for herself, for something she was thinking of that
wasn^t you.

"What have you done with your father?" she said.

"I was to tell you. Daddy's ever so sorry; but he
can't come till to-morrow. A horrid man kept him on
business."

"Oh?" A little crisping wave went over Aunt
Adeline's face, a wave of vexation. "Anne saw it.

40 ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS

"He is really sorry. You should have heard him
damning and cursing."

They laughed. Adeline was appeased. She took
her husband's arm and drew him to herself. Some-
thing warm and secret seemed to pass between th^n.

Anne said to herself: "That's how people look "

without finishing her thought.

Lest she should feel shut out he tiuned to her.

"Well, are you glad to be back again, Anne? " he said,

"Glad? I'm never glad to be anywhere else. I've
been counting the weeks and the days and the minutes."

"The mmutes?"

^ ' Yes. In the train. ' '

They had come up on to the flagged terrace. Anne
looked round her.

"Where's Jerrold?" she said.

And they laughed again. "There's no doubt,"
said Uncle Robert, "about it being the same Anne."

u

«

A 4ay passed. John Severn had come. He was to
stay with the Fieldings for the last wqpks of his leave.
He had followed Adeline from the hot terrace to the cool
library. When she wanted the sun again he would
follow her out.

Robert and Colin were down at the Mai^or Farm.
Eliot was in the schoolroom, reading.

Jerrold and Anne sat together on the grass imder the
beech trees, alone. r

They had got over the shock of the first encoimter,
when they met at arms' length, not kissing, but each
remembering, shyly, that they used to kiss. If they

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 41

had not got over the "difference," the change of Anne
from a child to a big girl, of Jerrold from a big boy to a
man's height and a man's voice, it was because, in
some obscure way, that difference fascinated them.
The great thing was that underneath it they were both,
as Anne said, "the same."

"I don't know what I'd have done, Jerrold, if you
hadn't been."

"You might have known I would be."

"I did know."

"I say, what a thundering lot of hair you've got. I
like it."

"Do you like what Auntie AdeUne calls my new
nose?"

"Awfully."

She meditated. "Jerrold, do you remember Benjy? "

"Rather."

"Dear Benjy ... Do you know, I can hardly
beUeve. I'm here. I never thought I should come
again."

"But why shouldn't you?"

" I don't know. Only I think every time something'll
happen to prevent me. I'm afraid of being ill or dying
before I can get away. And they might send me any-
where any day. It's awful to be so uncertain."

"Don't think about it. You're here now. "

"Oh Jerrold, supposing it was the last time "

"ft isn't the last time. Don't spoil it by thinking."

" lou^dr think if you were me. "

"I ^y — y9U don't ijiean they're not decent to you?"

"Who, Grandmamma and Grandpapa? They're

42 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

perfect darlings. So's Aunt Emily. But they're
awfully old and they can't play at anything, except
bridge. And it isn't the same thing at all. Besides,
I don't—"

She paused. It wasn't kind to the poor things to say"
"I don't love them the same. "

"Do you like us so awfully, then?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad you like us."

They were silent.

Up and down the flagged terrace above them Aunt
Adeline and Uncle Robert walked together. The
soimd of his voice came to them, low and troubled.

Anne listened, "Is anything wrong?" she said.
"They've been like that for ages."

"Daddy's bothered about Eliot."

"EUot?"

"About his wanting to be a doctor."

"Is Auntie Adeline bothered?"

"No. She would be if she knew. But she doesn't
think it'll happen. She never thinks anything wiU
happen that she doesn't like. But it wiU. They can't
keep him off it. lie's been doing medicine at Cam-
bridge because they won't let him go and do it at Bart's.
It's just come out that he's been at it all the time.
Working like blazes."

"Why shouldn't he be a doctor if he Ukes?"

"Because he's the eldest son. It wouldn't matter so
much if it was oiJy Colin or me. But Eliot ought to
have the estate. And he says he won't have it. Hie
doesn't want it. He says Daddy's got to leave it to

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDING8 43

me. That's what's worrymg the dear old thing. He
thmks it wouldn't be fair."

"Who to?"

Jerrold laughed. "Why, to Eliot. He's got it into
his dear old head that he crught to have it. He can't
see that Eliot knows his own business best. It would
be most awfully in his way ... Its pretty beastly for
me, too. I don't like taking it when I know Daddy
wants Eliot to have it. That's to say, he doesnH want;
he'd like me to have it, because I'd take care of it.
But that makes him all the more stuck on Eliot,
because he thinks it's the right thing. I don't like
having it in any case."

"Why ever not?"

"WeU, I can only have it if Daddy dies, and I'd
rather die myself first."

"That's how I feel about my farm."

"Beastly, isn't it? Still, I'm not worrying. Daddy's
frightfully healthy, thank Heaven. He'll live to be
ei^ty at the very least. Why — I should be fifty."

" YcuWe all right," said Anne. "But it's awful for me.
Grandpapa might die any day. He's seventy-five now.
It'll be ages before you're fifty."

"And I may never be it. India may polish me off long
before that.'^ He laughed his happy laugh. The
Idea Qf his own death seemed to Jerrold irresistibly
funny.

''IndiaV

He laughed again at her dismay.

"Rather. I'm going in for the Indian Civil."

"Oh Jerrold — you'll be away years and years, nearly
all the time, like Daddy, and I shan't ever see you."

44 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

" I shan't start for ages. Not for five years. Lots of
time to see each other m."

"Lots of time for not seeing each other ever again."

She sat staring mournfully, seeing before her the
agony of separation.

"Nonsense," said Jerrold. "Why on earth shouldn't
you come out to India too? I say, that would be a lark,
wouldn't it? You would come, wouldn't you?"

"Like a shot," said Anne.

"Would you give up your farm to come?"

"I'd give up anything."

" Thafs all right. Let's go and play tennis."

They played for two hours straight on end, laughing
and shouting. Adehne, intensely bored by EUot and his
absurd affairs, came down the lawn to look at them.
She loved their laughter. It was good to have Aime
there. Anne was so happy.

John Severn came to her.

"Did you ever see anything happier than that
absurd boy?" she said. "Why can't EUot be jolly and
contented, too, like Jerrold?"

"Don't you think the chief reason may be that he
isnH Jerrold?"

"Jerrold's adorable. He's never given me a day's
trouble since he was bom."

"No. It's other women he'll give trouble to," said
John, "before he's done."

m

Colin was playing. All afternoon he had been prac-
tising with fury; first scales, then exercises. Then a

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDmGS 45

pause; and now, his fingers slipped into the first move-
ment of the Waldstein Sonata.

Secretly, mysteriously he began; then broke, sharply,
impatiently, crescendo, as the passion of the music
mounted up and up. And now as it settled into its
rhythm his hands ran smoothly and joyously along.

The west window of the drawing-room was open to
the terrace. Eliot and Anne sat out there and listened.

''He's wonderful, isn't he?" she said.

Eliot shook his head. "Not so wonderful as he was.
Not half so wonderful as he ought to be. He'll never be
good enough for a professional. He knows he won't."

"What's happened?"

"Nothing. That's just it. Nothing ever will happen.
He's stuck. It's the same with his singing. He'll never
be any good if he can't go away and study somewhere.
If it isn't Berhn or Leipzig it ought to be London. But
father can't Uve there and the mater won't go anywhere
without him. So poor Col-Col's got to stick here doing
nothing, with the same rotten old masters telling him
things he knew years ago. . . . It'll be worse next
term when he goes to Cheltenham. He won't be able
to practice, and nobody'll care a danm. . . . Not that
that would matter if he cared himself."

Colin was playing the slow movement now, the grave,
pure passion, pressed out from the solemn bass, throb-
bed, tense with restraint.

"Oh Eliot, he does care."

"In a way. Not enough to keep on at it. You've got
to slog like blazes, if you want to giet on."

" Jerrold won't, ever, then."
Oh yes he wiU. He^ll get on all right, because he

((

46 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

doesnH care; because work comes so jolly easy to him.
He hasn't got to break his heart over it. . . . The
trouble with Colin is that he cares, awfully, for such a
lot of other things. Us, for instance. He'U leave off in
the middle of a movement if he hears Jerrold yelling for
him. He ought to be able to chuck us all; we're all of us
in his way. He ought to hate us. He ought to hate
Jerrold worst of all."

Adeline and John Severn came roimd the comer of
the terrace.

*' What's all this about hating?" he said.

"What do you mean, Eliot?" said she.

Eliot raised himself wearily. "I mean," he said,
"you'll never be any good at anything if you're not pre-
pared to commit a crime for it."

"I know what I'd commit a crime for," said Anne.
"But I shan't teU."

"You needn't. You^d do it for anybody you were
gone on."

"Well, I wotild. I'd tell any old lie to make them
happy. I'd steal for them if they were himgry. I'd kill
anybody who hurt them."

"I believe you would," said Eliot.

"We know who Anne would commit her crimes for."

"We don't. We don't know anything she doesn't
want us to," said Eliot, shielding her from his mother's
mischief.

"That's right, Eliot, stick up for her," said John.
He knew what she was thinking of. "Would Jerrold
commit a crime?" he said.

"Sooner than any of us. But not for the Indian

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 47

Civil. He'd rob, butcher, lie himself black in the face
for anything he really cared for."

"He would for Colin," said Anne.

"Rob? Butcher and lie?" Her father meditated.

"It sounds like Jerrold, doesn't it?" said Adeline.
"Absurd children. Thank goodness they don't any of
them know what they're talking about .... And
here's tea."

Indoors the music stopped suddenly and Colin came
out, ready.

"What's Jerrold doing?" he said.

It was, as Eliot remarked, a positive obsesdon.

iv

Tea was over. Adeline and Anne sat out together on
the terrace. The others had gone. Adeline looked at
her watch.

"What time is it?" said Anne.

"Twenty past five."

Anne starCed up. "And I'm going to ride with
Jerrold at half-past."

"Are you? I thought you were going to stay with
me."

Anne turned. " Do you want me to, Auntie?"

"What do you think?"

"If you really want me to, of course I'll stay. Jerry
won't mind."

"You darling . . . And I used to think you were
never going to like me. Do you remember?"

"I remember I was a perfect little beast to you."

"You were. But you do love me a bit now, don't
you?"

48 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"What do you Oiinkr'

Anne leaned over* her, covering her, supporting her-
self by the arms of the garden chair. She brought her
face close down, not kissmg her, but looking into her
eyes and smihng, teasing in her tiun.

"You love me," said Adeline; "but you'd cut me
into Uttle bits if it would please Jerrold,"

Anne drew back suddenly, straightened herself and
turned away,

"Run off, you monkey, or you'll keep him waiting.
I don't want you . . . Wait . . . Where's Uncle
Robert?"

"Down at the farm."

"Bother his old farm. Well — you might ask that
father of yours to come and amuse me."

"I'll go and get him now. Are you sure you don't
want me?"

"Quite sure, you funny thing."

Anne ran, to make up for lost time.

The Sim had come round on to the terrace. Adeline
rose from her chair. John Severn rose, stiffly.

She had made him go with her to the goldfish pond,
made him walk round the garden, listening to him and
not Hst^ning, detaching herself wilfully at every turn,
to gather more and more of her blue flowers; made him
come into the drawing-room and look on while she
arranged them exquisitely in the tall Chinese jars.
She had brought him out again to sit on the terrace
in the sim; and now, in her restlessness, she was up
again and calling to him to follow.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 49

"IVs bfddng here. Shall we go into the library?"

"If you like." He sighed as he said it.

As long as they stayed out of doors he felt safe and
peaceful; but he was afraid of the library. Once there,
shut in with her in that room which she was consecrating
to their connnunion, heaven only knew what sort of
fool he might make of himself. Last time it was only
the sudden entrance of Robert that had prevented
some such manifestation. And to-day, her smile and
her attentive attitude told him that she expected him
to be a fool, that she looked to his folly for her enter-
tainment.

He had followed her like a dog; and as if he had
been a dog her hand patted a place on the couch
beside her. And because he was a fool and foredoomed
he took it.

There was a silence. Then suddenly he made up his
mind.

"Adeline, I'm very sorry, but I find I've got to go
to-morrow."

"Go? Up to town?"

"Yes."

"But — you're coming back again."

"I'm — afraid — not."

"My dear John, you haven't been here a week.
I thought you were going to stay with us till your
leave was up."

"So did I. But I find I can't"

"Whyever not?"

"Oh — there are all sorts of things to be seen to."

"Nonsense, what do you suppose Robert will say to
you, running ofif like this?"

i

50 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS

"Robert will understand."

"It's more than I do."

"You can see, can't you, that I'm going because
I must, not because I want to."

"Well, I think it's horrid of you. I shall miss you
frightfuUy."

"Yes, you were good enough to say I amused you."

"You're not amusing me now, my dear . . .
Are you going to take Anne away from me too?"

"Not if you'd like to keep her."

"Of course I'd like to keep her."

He paused, broodmg, wrenchmg one of his lean
hands with the other.

"There's one thing I must ask you "

"Ask, ask, then."

"I told you Anne would care for you if you gave her
time. She does care for you."

"Yes. Odd as it may seem, I really believe she does."

"Well — don't let her be hurt by it."

"Hurt? Who's gomg to hurt her?"

"You, if you let her throw herself away on you when
you don't want her."

"Have I behaved as if I didn't want her?"

"You've behaved like an angel. All the same, you
frighten me a little. You've a terrible fascination for
the child. Don't use it too much. Let her feelings alone.
Don't work on them for the fim of seeing what she'll
do next. If she tries to break away don't bring her
back. Don't jerk her on the chain. Don't — amuse
yourself with Anne."

"So that's how you think of me?"

"Oh, you know how I think."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS 51

it

Do I? Have I ever known? You say the cruellest
thing?. Is there anything else I'm not to do to her?"

" Yes. For Gkxi's sake don't tease her about Jerrold."

"My dear John, you talk as if it was serious. I
assure you Jerrold isn't thinking about Anne. "

"And Anne isn't ^thinking' about Jerrold. They
don't think, poor dears. They don't know what's
happening to them. None of us know what's happen- -
ing to us till it happens. Then it's too late. "

"Well, I'll promise not to do any of these awful
things if you'll tell me, honestly, why you're going. "

He stared at her.

"Tell you? You know why. I am going for the
same reason that I came. How can you possibly ask
me to stay? " .

"Of com^e, if you feel like that about it "

"You'll say I'd no business to come if I feel like that.
But I knew I wasn't hurting anybody but myself. I
knew you were safe. There's never been anybody but
Robert."

"Never. Never for a minute."

"I tell you I know that. I always have known it.
And I imderstand it. What I can't imderstand is why,
when that's that, you make it so hard for me. "

" Do I make it hard for you? "

"Damnably."
You poor thing. But you'll get over it. "
I'm not young enough to get over it. Does it look
like Setting over it? It's been going on for twenty-two
years. "

"Oh come, not all the time, John."

"Pretty nearly. On and off."

52 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"More ofif than on, I think."

' * What does that matter when it's *on' now? Anyhow
I've got to go. "

"Go, if you must. Do the best for yourself, my
dear. Only don't say I made you."

"I'm not saying anything."

"WeU — I'm sorry."

All the same her smile declared her profound and
triumphant satisfaction with herself. It remained with
her after he had gone. She would rather he had stayed,
following her about, waiting for her, ready to her call,
amusing her; but his gomg was the finer tribute to her
power: the finest, perhaps, that he could have well
paid. She hadn't been prepared for such a complete
surrender.

vi

Something had happened to Eliot. He sulked.
Indoors and out, working and playing, at meal-times
and be -time he sulked. Jerrold said of him that he
sulked in his sleep.

Two things made his behaviour inexpUcable. To
begin with, it was uncaUed for. Robert Fieldmg,
urged by John Severn in a last interview, had given in
all along the line. Not only had Eliot leave to stick
to his medicine (which he would have done in any case),
but he was to go to Bart's to work for his doctor's degree
when his three years at Cambridge were ended. His
father had made a new will, leaving the estate to
Jerrold and securing to the eldest son an income^
almost large enough to make up for the loss. Eliot,
whose ultimate aim was research work, now saw all the

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 53

ways before him cleared. He had no longer anything
to sulk for.

Still more mysteriously, his sulking appeared to be
related to Anne. He had left off going for walks alone
with her in the fields and woods; he didn't show her
things under his microscope any more. If she leaned
over his shoulder he writhed himself away; if his hand
blundered against hers he drew it back as if her touch
burnt him. More often than not he would go out of the
room if she came into it. Yet as long as she was there
he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She would be sitting
still, reading, when she would be aware, again and again,
of Eliot's eyes, lifted from his book to fasten on her.
She could feel them following her when she walked away.

One wet day in August they were alone together in
the schoolroom, reading. Suddenly Anne felt his eyes
on her. Their look was intent, penetrating, disturbing;
it burned at her under his jutting, sombre eyebrows.

"Is there anything funny about me?" she said.

"Funny? No. Why?"

"Because you keep on looking at me."
I didn't know I was looking at you. "
Well, you were. You're always doing it. And I
can't think why. "

" It isn't because I want to. "

He held his book up so that it hid his face.

"Then don't do it," she said. "You needn't."

"I shan't," he snarled, savagely, behind his screen.

But he did it again and agaiQ, as if for the life of him
he couldn't help it. There was something about it
mysterious and exciting. It made Anne want to look
at Eliot when he wasn't looking at her.

it

54 ANNE SEVERN AND THB PIELDINGS

She liked his blunt, clever f aoe, the half-u^y likeness
of his father's with its jutting eyebrows and jutting
chin, its fine grave mouth and greenish-brown eyes;
mouth and eyes that had once been so kind and were
now so queer. EUot'sfac made her keep on wondering
what it was doing. She had to look at it.

One day, when she was looking, their eyes met. She
had just time to see that his mouth had softened as if
he were pleased to find her looking at him. And his
eyes were different; not cross, but dark now and un-
happy; they made her feel as if she had hurt him.

They were in the Ubrary. Unele Robert was there,
sitting in his chair behind them, at the other end of the
long room. She had forgotten Uncle Robert.

"Oh, Eliot," she said, "have I done anythmg?"

" Not that I know of. " His face stiffened.

"You look as if I had. Havel?"

" Don't talk such putrid rot. As if I cared what you
did. Can't you leave me alone? "

And he jumped up and left the room.

And there was Uncle Robert in his chair, watching
her, looking kind and sorry.

"What's the matter with hun?" she said. "Why
is he so cross?" •

"You mustn't mind. He doesn't mean it. "

"No, but it's so fimny of him. He's only cross w^th
me; and I haven't done anything."

"It isn't that."

"What is it, then? I believe he hates me. "

"No. He doesn't hate you, Anne. He's going
through a bad time, that's all. He can't help being

cross."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS W

"Why can't he? He's got everything he wants. "
"Has he?"

Uncle Robert was smiUng. And this time his smile
was for himself. She didn't understand it.

vu

Anne was going away. She said she supposed now
that EUot would be happy.

Grandmamma Severn thought she had been long
enough running loose with those Fielding boys. Grand-
papa Everitt agreed with her and they decided that in
September Anne should go to the big girls' college in
Cheltenham. Grandmamma and Aunt Emily had
left London and taken a house in Cheltenham and
Anne was to Uve with them there.

CoUn and she were going in the same week, Colin to
his college and Anne to hers.

They were discussing this prospect. Colin and
Jerrold and Anne in Colin's room. It was a chilly day
in September and Colin was in bed surrounded by hot
water bottles. He had tried to follow Jerrold in his big
jump across the river and had fallen in. He was not
ill, but he hoped he would be, for then he couldn't go
back to Cheltenham next week.

"If it wasn't for the hot water bottles," he said, "I
migkl get a chill. "

"I wish I could get one," said Anne. "But I can't
get anything. I'm so beastly strong."

"It isn't so bad for you. You haven't got to Uve
with the girls. It'll be perfectly putrid in my house
now that Jerrold isn't there. "

"Haven't you any friends, Col-Col?"

56 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Yes. There's little Rogers. But even he's pretty
rotten after Jerry."

''He would be."

"And that old ass Rawly says I'll be better this term
without Jerrold. He kept on gassing about fighting
your own battles and standing on your own feet. You
never heard such stinking rot."

"You're lucky it's Cheltenham," iJerrold said, "and
not some other rotten hole. Dad and I'll go over on
half-holidays and take you out. You and Anne. "

"You'll be at Cambridge."

"Not till next year. And it isn't as if Anne wasn't
there."

"Grannie and Aunt Emily'll ask you every week.
I've made them. It'll be a bit slow, but they're rather
darUngs."

"Have they a piano?" Colin asked.

"Yes. And they'll let you play on it all the time. "

Colin looked happier. But he didn't get his chill,
and when the day came he had to go.

Jerrold saw Anne off at Wyck station.

"You'll look after Col-Col, won't you?" he said.
"Write and tell me how he gets on."

"I'll write every week."

Jerrold was thoughtful.

"After all, there's something in that idea of old
Rawlings', that I'm bad for him. He's got to do with-
out me."

"So have I."

"You're different. You'll stand it, if you've got to.
Colin won't. And he doesn't chum up with the other
chaps."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 57

"No. But think of me and all those awful girls —
after you and Eliot" (she had forgotten Eliot's sulkiness)
"and Uncle Robert. And Grannie and Aunt Emily
after Auntie Adeline."

"Well, I'm glad Col-CoPll have you sometimes."

"So'm I . . . Oh, Jerrold, here's the beastly train."

It drew up along the platform.

Anne stood in her carriage, leaning out of the window
to him.

His hand was on the ledge. They looked at each
other without speaking.

The guard whistled. Carriage doors slammed one
after another. The train moved forward.

Jerrold ran alongside. "I say, you'll let Col-Col
play on that piano?"

Anne was gone.

in

ANNE AND JERROLD

" 'Where have you been all the day, Rendal, my son?
Where have you been all the day, my pretty one? . . .' "

Five years had passed. It was August, nineteen
ten.

Anne had come agam. She sat out on the terrace
with Adeline, while Colin^s song drifted out to them
thro gh the open window.

It was her first day, the first time for three years.
Anne's calendar was blank from nineteen seven to
nineteen ten. When she was seventeen she had left
Cheltenham and gone to Uve with Grandpapa Everitt
at the Essex farm. Grandpapa Everitt wanted her
more than Grandmamma Severn, who had Aimt Emily;
so Anne had stayed with him all that time. She had
spent it learning to farm and looking after Grandpapa
on his bad days. For the last year of his life all his
days had been bad. Now he was dead, dead three
months ago, and Anne had the farm. She was going
to train for five years under the man who had worked
it for Grandpapa; after that she meant to manage it
herself.

She had been trying to tell Aimt Adeline all about it,
but you could see she wasn't interested. She kept on
saying "Yes" and "Oh" and "ReaUy"? m the wrong

58

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 59

places. She never could listen to you for long together,
and this afternoon she was evidently thinking of some-
thing else, perhaps of John Severn, who had been home
on leave and gone again without coming to the
Fieldings.

'' 'I've been to my sweetheart, mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm dck to my heart and I fam would lie down. . .' "

Mournful, and beautiful, Colin's song came through
the windows, and Anne thought of Jerrold who was not
there. He was staying in Yorkshire with some friends
of his, the Durhams. He would be back to-morrow.
He would have got away from the Durhams.

..." 'make my bed soon. . .' "

To-morrow. To-morrow.

"Who are the Diu-hams, Auntie?"

"If6'« Sir Charles Dm-ham. Something important in
the Punjaub. Some high government official. He'll be
useful to Jerrold if he gets a job out there. They're
going back in October. I suppose I shall have to ask
Maisie Durham before they sail."

Maisie Durham. Maisie Durham. But to-morrow
he would have got away.

" 'What will you leave your lover, Rendal, my son?
What will you leave your lover, my pretty one?
A rope to hang her, mother,
A rope to hang her, mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.' "J

"Sing something cheerful, Colin, for Goodness sake,*'
said his mother. But Colin sang it again.

'A rope to hang her* "

t( (

60 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Bless him, you'd think he'd known all the wicked
women that ever were. My little Col-Col."

"You like him the best, don't you?"

"No. Indeed I do not. I like my laughing boy
best. You wouldn't catch Jerry singing a dismal song
Uke that."

"Darling, you used to say Colin was your favoiuite."

"No, my dear. Never. Never. It was always
Jerrold. Ever since he was bom. He never cried
when he was a baby. Colin was always crying."

"Poor Col-Col."

"There you are. Nobody'U ever say, Toor Jerrold'.
I Uke happy people, Anne. In this tiresome world it's
people's duty to be happy."

"If it was, would they be? Don't look at me as if I
wasn't."

"I wasn't thinking of you, ducky . . . You might
tell Pinkney to take all those tea-things off the terrace
and put them hack into the lounge. "

u

The beech-trees stood in a half ring at the top of the
highest field. Jerrold had come back. He and Anne
sat in the bay of the beeches, looking out over the
hills.

Curve after curve of many-coloured hills, rolling
together, flung off from each other, an endless undula-
tion. Rounded heads carrying a clump of trees like a
comb; long steep groins packed with tree-tops; raking
necks hog-maned with stiff plantations. Slopes that
spread out fan-wise, opened wide wings. An immense
stretching and flattening of arcs up to the straight blue

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 61

wall on the horizon. A band of trees stood up there
like a hedge.

Cahn, clean spaces emerging^ the bright, sharp-cut
pattern of the fields; squares and fans and pointed
triangles, close fitted; emerald green of the turnips;
yellow of the charlock lifted high and clear; red brown
and pink and purple of ploughed land and fallows; red
gold of the wheat and white green of the barley; shim-
mering in a wash of thin air.

Where Anne and Jerrold sat, green pastures, bitten
smooth by the sheep, flowed down below them in long
ridges like waves. On the right the bright canary
coloured charlock brimmed the field. Its flat, vanilla
and ahnond scent came to them.

" What^s Yorkshire Uke?"

"Not a patch on this place. I can't think what
there is about it that makes you feel so jolly happy.'*

"But you'd always be happy, Jerrold, anywhere."

"Not like that. I mean a queer, uncanny feeling
that you sort of can't make out."

"I know. I know . . . There's nothing on earth
that gets you like the smell of charlock."

Anne tilted up her nose and sniffed delicately.

"Fancy seeing this coimtry suddenly for the first
time," he said.

"There's such a lot of it. You wouldn't see it prop-
erly. It takes ages just to tell one hill from another. "

He looked at her. She could feel him meditating,
considering.

"I say, I wonder what it would feel like sedng each
other for the first time."

Not half so nice as seeing each other now. Why, we

t(

62 ANNE SEVERN AND THE flELDINGS

4

shouldn't remember any of the jolly things we've done
together."

He had seen Maisie Durham for the first time. She
wondered whether that had made him think of it.

"No, but the efifect might be rather stmming — I
mean of seeing you^

"It wouldn't. And you'd be nothing but a big man
with a face I rather liked. I suppose I should like your
face. We shouldn't know each other, Jerrold."

"No more we should. It would be like not knowing
Dad or Mmnmy or Colin. A thing you can't conceive.''

"It would be like not knowing anything at all • • •
Of course, the best thing would be both."

"Both?"

"Knowing each other and not knowing. "

"You can't have it both ways," he said.

"Oh, can't you! You don't half know me as it is,
* and I don't half Imow you. We might both do any-
thing any day. Things that would make each other
jmnp."

"What sort of things?"

"That's the exciting part of it — we wouldn't
know."

"I believe you covldj Anne — make me jump."

"Wait till I get out to India."

' ' You're really going? ' '

"Really going. Daddy may send for me any day. "

"I may be sent there. Then we'll go out together."

"Will Maisie Durham be going too?"

"O Lord no. Not with us. At least I hope not. . .
Poor little Maisie, I was a beast to say that."

"IssheUttle?"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQ8 63

''No, rather big. But you think of her as little.
Only I don't think of her/'

They stood up; they stood close; looking at each
other, laughing. As he laughed his eyes took her in,
from head to feet, wondering, admiring.

Anne's face and body had the same forward springing
look. In their very stillness they somehow suggested
movement. Her young breasts sprang forwards, sharp
pomted. Her eyes had no sUding comer glances.
He was for ever aware of Anne's face turning on its
white neck to look at him straight and full, her black-
brown eyes shining and darkening and shining imder
the long black brushes of her eyebrows. Even her nose
expressed movement, a sort of rhythm. It rose in a
slender arch, raked straight forward, dipped delicately
and rose again in a delicately questing tilt. This tilt
had the deUghtful air of catching up and shortening the
curl of her upper Up. The exquisite lower one sprang
forward, sharp and salient from the little dent above her
innocent, roimded chin. Its edge ciuied slightly for-
ward in a line finn as ivory and fine as the edge of a
flower. As long as he lived he would remember the
way of it.

And she, she was aware of his body, slender and
tense under his white flannels. It seemed to throb
with the power it held in, prisoned in the smooth, tight
muscles. His eyes showed the colour of dark hyacinths,
set in his clear, sun-browned skin. He smiled down
at her, and his mouth and little fawn brown moustache
followed the tilted shadow of his nostrils.

Suddenly her whole body quivered as if his had
touched it. And when she looked at him she had the

64 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

queer feeling that she saw him for the first time. Never
before like that. Never before.

But to him she was the same Amie. He knew her
face as he knew his mother's face or Colin's. He knew,
he remembered all her ways.

And this was not what he wanted. He wanted some
strange wonder and excitement; he wanted to find it in
Anne and in nobody but Anne, and he couldn't find it.
• He wanted to be in love with Anne and he wasn't.
She was too near him, too much a part of him, too well-
known, too well-remembered. She made him restless
and impatient, looking, looking for the strangeness, the
mjTstery he wanted and couldn't find.

If only he could have seen her suddenly for the first
time.

...
m

It was extraordinary how happy it made her to be
with Aunt Adeline, walking slowly, slowly, with her
round the garden, stretched out beside her on the
terrace, following her abrupt moves from the sun into
the shade and back again; or sitting for hours with her
in the big darkened bedroom when Adeline had one of
the bad headaches that attacked her now, brushing
her hair, and putting handkerchiefs soaked in eau-de-
cologne on her hot forehead.

Extraordinary, because this inactivity did violence
. to Anne's nature; besides, Auntie Adeline behaved as if
you were uninteresting and unimportant, not attending
to a word you said. Yet her strength lay in her incon-
sistency. One minute her arrogance ignored you and
the next she came himibly and begged for your caresses ;

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 65

she was dependent, like a child; on your affection.
Anne thought that pathetic. And there was always her
fascination. That was absolute; above logic and
moraUty, irrefutable as the sweetness of a flower.
Everybody felt it, even the servants whom she tor-
mented with her incalculable wants. Jerrold and
Colin, even EUot, now that he was grown-up, felt it.
As for Uncle Robert he was like a yoimg man in the
beginning of first love.

Adeline judged people by their attitude to her.
Anne, whether she listened to her or not, was her own
darling. Her husband and John Severn were adorable.
Major Markham of Wyck Wold and Mr. Hawtry of
Medlicote, who admired her, were perfect dears. Sir
John C!orbett of Underwoods, who didn't, was that
silly old thing. Resist her and she felt no mean re-
sentment; you simply dropped out of her scene. Thus
her world was peopled with her adorers.

Anne couldn't have told you whether she felt the
charm on its own account, or whether the pleasure of
being with her was simply part of the blessed state of
being at Wyck-on-the-Hill. Enough that Aimtie
Adeline was there where Uncle Robert and Eliot and
Colin and Jerrold were; she belonged to them; she
belonged to the house and garden; she stood with the
flowers.

Anne was walking with her now, gathering roses for
the house. The garden was hke a room shut in by the
clipped yew walls, and open to the sky. The sunshine
poured into it; the flagged walks were pale with heat.

Anne's cat, Nicky, was there, the black Persian that
Jerrold had given her last birthday. He sat in the

66 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

middle of the path, on his haunches, his forelegs
straight and stijff, planted together. His face had a
look of sweet and solemn meditation.

''Oh Nicky, oh you darling!" she said.

When she stroked him he got up, arching his back
and carrying his tail in a flourishing curve, like one side
of a lyre; he rubbed against her ankles. A white
butterfly flickered among the blue larkspurs; when
Nicky saw it he danced on his hind legs, clapping his
forepaws as he tried to catch it. But the butterfly
was too quick for him. Anne picked him up and he
flattened himself against her breast, butting imder her
chin with his smooth roimd head in his loving way.

And as Adeline wouldn't listen to her Anne talked to
the cat.

" Clever little thing, he sees everything, all the butter-
flies and the dicky-birds and the daddy-long-legs.
Don't you, my pretty one?"

''What's the good of talking to the cat? " said Adeline.
"He doesn't understand a word you say."

"He doesn't understand the words, he says, but
he feels the feeling ... He was the most beautiful of
all the pussies, he was, he was." *"

" Nonsense. You're throwing yourself away on that
absurd animal, for all the affection you'll get out of
him."

"I shall get out just what I put in. He expects to
be talked to."

"So do I."

" I've been trying to talk to you all afternoon and you
won't listen. And you don't know how you can hurt
Nicky's feelings. He's miserable if I don't tell him he's

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 67

a beautiful pussy the minute he comes into my room.
He creeps away imder the washstand and broods. We
take these darling things and give them little souls and
hearts, and we've no business to hurt them. And
they've such a tiny time to live, too . . . Look at him,
sitting up to be carried, like a child."

"Oh wait, my dear, till you have a child. You
ridiculous baby."

"Oh come, Jerrold's every bit as gone on him."

"You're a ridiculous pair," said Adeline.

"If Nicky purred roimd your legs, you'd love him,
too," said Anne.

IV

Uncle Robert was not well. He couldn't "eat the
things he used to eat; he had to have fish or chicken and
milk and beef-tea and Benger's food. Jerrold said it
was only indigestion and he'd be all right m a day or
two. But you could see by the way he walked now
that there was something quite dreadfully wrong. He
went slowly, slowly, as if every step tired him out.

"Sorry, Jerrold, to be so slow."

But Jerrold wouldn't see it.

They had gone down to the Manor Farm, he and
Jerrold and Anne. He wanted to show Jerrold the
prize stock and what heifers they could breed from
next year. "I should keep on with the short horns.
You can't do better," he said.

Then they had gone up the fields to see if the wheat
was ready for cutting yet. And he had kept on telling
Jerrold what crops were to be sown after the wheat,

68 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

swedes to come first, and vetch after the swedes, to
crowd out the charlock.

"You'll have to keep the charlock down, Jerrold, or
it'll kill the crops. You'll have the devil of a job.''
He spoke as though Jerrold had the land already and
he was telling him the things he wanted him to
remember.

They came back up the steep pasture, very slowly.
Uncle Robert leaning on Jerrold's arm. They sat
down to rest under the beech-trees at the top. They
looked at the landscape, the many-coloured hills,
rolling together, flung off from each other, 'an endless
imdulation.

^ "Beautiful country. Beautiful coimtry," said Uncle
Robert as if he had never seen it before.

"You should see my farm," Anne said. "It's as
fiat as a chess-board and all squeezed up by the horrid
town. Grandpapa sold a lot of it for building. I
wish I could sell the rest and buy a farm in the Cots-
wolds. Do you ever have farms to sell, Uncle Robert?"

"Well, not to sell. To let, perhaps, if a tenant goes.
You can have the Barrow Farm when old Sutton dies.
He can't last long. But," he went on, "you'll find it
very different farming here."

"How different?"

"Well, in some of those fields you'll have to fight the
charlock all the time. And in some the soil's hard.
And in some you've got to plough across the sun because
of the slope of the land . . . Remember, Jerrold,
Anne's to have the Barrow Farm, if she wants it, when
Sutton dies."

Jerrold laughed. ' ' My dear father, I shall be in India."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 69

" J'K remind you, Uncle Robert."

Uncle Robert smiled. "I'll tell Barker to remember,"
he said. Barker was his agent.

It was as if he were thinking that when Sutton died
he might not be there. And he had said that Sutton
wouldn't last long. Anne looked at Jerrold. But
Jerrold's face was happy. He didn't see it.

They left Uncle Robert in the library, drinking hot
water for tea.

"Jerrold," Anne said, "I'm siu'e Uncle Robert's ill."

" Oh no. It's only indigestion. He'll be as right as
rain in a day or two."

I

1

Anne's cat Nicky was dying.

Jerrold struggled with his sleep, pushing it back and
back before him, trying to remember.

There was something; something that had hung over
him the night before. He had been afraid to wake and
find it there. Something .

Now he remembered.

Nicky was dying and Anne was unhappy. That was
what it was; that was what he had hated to wake to,
Anne's unhappiness and the Uttle cat.

There was nothing else. Nothing wrong with Daddy
— only indigestion. He had had it before.

The room was still dark, but the leaded squares of the
window lattices barred a sky pale with dawn. In her
room across the passage Anne would be sitting up with
Nicky. He remembered now that he had to get up
early to make her some tea.

He lit a candle and went to her door to see if she were

70 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGg

stiU awake. Her voice answered his gentle tapping,
"Who's there?"

' ' Me. Jerrold. May I come in? "

* * Yes. But don't bring the Ught in. He's sleeping."

He put out the candle and made his way to her.
Against the window panes he could see the outline of
her body sitting upright in a chair. She glinmiered
there in her white wrapper and he made out something
black stretched straight and still in her lap. He sat
down in the window-seat and watched.
h The room was mysterious, full of dusk air that thinned
as the dawn sthred in it palpably, wakmg first Anne's
white bed, a strip of white cornice and a sheet of watery
looking-glass. Nicky's saucer of milk gleamed white on
the dark floor at Anne's feet. The pale ceiling light-
ened ; and with a shding shimmer of polished curves the
furniture rose up from the walls. Presently it stood
clear, wine-coloured, shining in the strange, pure light.

And in the strange, pure Ught he saw Anne, m her
white wrapper with the great rope of her black hair,
plaited, hanging [down her back. The little black cat
lay in her white lap, supported by her arm.

Sh0 smiled at Jerrold strangely. She spoke and her
voice was low and strange.

"He's asleep, Jerry. He kept on looking at me and
mewing. Then he tried to climb into my lap and
couldn't. And I took him up and he was quiet then.
I think he was pleased that I took him . . . I've given
him the morphia pill and I don't think he's in pain.
He'll die in his sleep."

"Yes. He'll die in his sleep."

He hardly knew what he was saying. He was look-

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 71

ing at Anne, and it was as if now, at last, he saw her for
the first time. This, this was what he wanted, this
mysterious, strangely smiling Anne, this white Anne
with the great plaited rope of black hair, who belonged
to the night and the dawn.

" I'm going to get you some tea," he said.

He went down to the kitchen where everjrthing had
been left ready for him over-night. He Ut the gas-ring
and made the tea and brought it to her with cake and
bread and butter on a little tray. He set it down beside
her on the window-seat. But Anne could neither eat
nor drink. She cried out to him.

"Oh, Jerry, look at him. Do you think he's dying
nowf'\

He knelt down and looked. Nicky's eyes were two
slits of glaze between half-shut lids. His fur stood up
on his bulging, frowning forehead. His little, flat
cat's face was drawn to a point with a look of helpless
innocence and anguish. His rose-leaf tongue showed
between his teeth as he panted.

"Yes. I'm awfully afraid he's dying."

They waited half an horn:, an hour. They never
knew how long. Once he said to her, "Would you
rather I went or stayed? And she said, "Stayed, if
you don't mind."

Through the open window, from the fields of char-
lock warm in the risen sim, the faint, smooth scent came
to them.

Then Nicky began to cough with a queer quacking
soimd. Jerrold went to her, upsetting the saucer as he
came.

72 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"It's his milk," she said. ''He couldn't drink it."
And with that she burst into tears.

"Oh, Anne, don't cry. Don't cry, Anne darling."

He put his arm round her. He laid his hand on her
hair and stroked it. He stooped suddenly and kissed
her face; gently, quietly, because of the dead thing in
her lap.
^ It was as if he had kissed her for the first time.

For one instant she had her arm round his neck and
clung to him, hiding her face on his shoulder. Then
suddenly she loosed herself and stood up before him,
holding out the body of the little cat.

"Take him away, please, Jerry, so that I don't see
him."

He took him away.
^ All day the sense of kissing her remained with him,
and aU night, with the scent of her hah-, the sweet rose-
scent of her flesh, the touch of her smooth rose-leaf skin.
That was Anne, that strangeness, that beauty of the
clear, cold dawn, that scent, that warm sweet smooth-
ness, that clinging of passionate arms. And he had
kissed her gently, quietly, as you kiss a child, as you
kiss a young, small animal.

• He wanted to kiss her close, pressing down on her
mouth, deep into her sweet flesh; to hold her body tight,
tight, crushed in his armis. If it hadn't been for Nicky
that was the way he would have kissed her.

To-morrow, to-morrow, he would kiss Anne that way.

IV

ROBERT

But when to-morrow came he did not kiss her. He
was annoyed with Anne because she insisted on taking
a gloomy view of his father's iUness.

The doctors couldn't agree about it. Dr. Ransome of
Wyck said it was gastritis. Dr. Harper of Cheltenham
said it was colitis. He had had that before and had
got better. Now he was getting worse, fast. For the
last three days he couldn't keep down his chicken and
fish. Yesterday not even his milk. To-day, not even
his ice-water. Then they both said it was acute gas-
tritis.

"He's never been like this before, Jerrold."

"No. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to get
better. People with acute gastritis do get better. It's
enough to make him die, everybody insisting that he's
going to. And it's rot sending for Eliot."

That was what Anne had done.

EUot had written to her from London:

10 Welbeck St.,
Sept. 25th, 1910.

Mydeab Anne:

I wish you'd tell me how Father really is. Nobody
but you has any intelligence that matters. Between

73

74 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

Mother's wails and Jerrold's optiinism I don't seem to
be getting the truth. If it's serious I'll come down at
once.

Always yours,

Eliot.

And Anne had answered:

My deab Euot,

It is serious. Dr. Ransome and Dr. Harper say so.
They think now it's acute gastritis. I wish you'd come
down. Jerrold is heart-breaking. He won't see it;
because he couldn't bear it if he did. I know Aimtie
wants you.

Always very affectionately yours,

Anne.

She addressed the letter to Dr. Eliot Fielding, for
Eliot had taken his degree.

And on that to-morrow of Jerrold's Eliot had come.
Jerrold told hhn he was a perfect idiot, rushing down
like that, as if Daddy hadn't an hour to live.

"You'll simply terrify him," he said. "He hasn't
got a chance with all you people grousing and croaking
round him."

And he went off to play in the lawn tennis tourna-
ment at Medlicote as a protest against the general
pessimism. His idea seemed to be that if he, Jerrold,
could play in a lawn tennis tournament, his father
couldn't be seriously ill,

"It's perfectly awful of Jerrold," his mother said.

I can't make him out. He adores his father, yet he
behaves as if he hadn't any feeling. ' '

i(

■ ■.\

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 75

She and Anne were sitting in the lounge after lunch-
eon, waiting for Eliot to come from his father's room.

"Didn't you tell him, Anne?"

'*I did everything I know. . . . But darling, he
isn't imfeeling. He does it because he can't bear to
think Uncle Robert won't get better. He's trying to
make himself believe he will. I think he does believe it.
But if he stayed away from the tournament that would
mean he didn't."

' "If only I could. But I must. I mitst beUeve it if
I'm not to go mad. I don't know what I shall do if he
doesn't get better. I can't Uve without him. It's
been so perfect, Anne. It can't come to an end like
this. It can't happen. It would be too cruel."

"It would," Anne said. But she thought: "It just
will happen. It's happening now."

"Here's Eliot," she said.

lEUot came down the stairs. AdeUne went to hhn-

/'Oh EUot, what do you think of him?"

EUot put her oflF. "I can't tell you yet."

"You thmk he's very bad?"

"Very."

".But you don't think there isn't any hope?"

"I can't tell yet. There may be. He wants you to
go to him. Don't talk much to him. Don't let him
talk. And don't, whatever you do, let him move an
inch."

Adeline went upstairs. Anne and EUot were alone.
* * You can tell," she said. * ' You don't think there's any
hope."

"I don't. There's something quite horribly wrong.
His temperature's a himdred and three."

76 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Is that bad?"

"Very.''

"I do wish Jerry hadn't gone."

"So do I."

"It'll be worse for him, Eliot, than for any of us
when he knows."

" I know. But he's always been like that, as long as
I can remember. He simply can't stand trouble. It's
the only thing he fimks. And his funking it wouldn't
matter if he'd stand and face it. But he runs away.
He's running away now. Say what you like, it's a sort
of cowardice."

"It's his only fault."

"I know it is. But it's a pretty serious one, Anne.
And he'll have to pay for it. The world's chock full of
suffering and all sorts of horrors, and you can't go
timaing your back to them as Jerrold does without
paying for it. Why, he won't face anything that's even
a little unpleasant. He won't listen if you try to tell
him. He won't read a book that hasn't a happy ending.
He won't go to a play that isn't a comedy . . . It's an
attitude I can't understand. I don't like horrors any
more than he does; but when I hear about them I want
to go straight where they are and do something to stop
them. That's what I chose my profession for."

"I know. Because you're so sorry. So sorry. But
Jerry's sorry too. So sorry that he can't bear it."

"But he's got to bear it. There it is and he's got to
take it. He's only making things worse for himself by
holding out and refusing. Jerrold will never be any
good till he has taken it. Till he's suffered danmably."

€1
£(

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 77

"I don't want him to suffer. I don't want it. I
can't bear him to bear it."
He must. He's got to."
I'd do anything to save him. But I can't."

"You can't. And you mustn't try to. It would be
the best thing that could happen to him."

"Oh no, not to Jerry."

"Yes. To Jerry. If he's ever to be any good. You
don't want him to be a moral invalid, do you?"

"No ... Oh Eliot, that's Uncle Robert's door."

Upstairs the door opened and shut and Adeline came
to the head of the stairs.

"Oh Eliot, come quick "

Eliot rushed upstairs. And Anne heard Adeline
sobbing hysterically and crying out to him.

"I can't — I can't. I can not bear it!"

She saw her trail off along the gallery to her room;
she heard her lock herself in. She had every appear-
ance of running away from something. From some-
thing she could not bear. Half an hour passed before
Elliot came back to Anne.

"What was it?" she said.

"What I thought. Gastric ulcer. He's had a
haemorrhage.

That was what Aunt Adeline had run away from.

"Look here, Anne, I've got to send Scarrott in the
car for Ransome. Then he'll have to go on to Chelt-
enham to fetch Colin."

" CoUn? " This was the end then.

"Yes. He'd better come. And I want you to do
something. I want you to drive over to Medlicote

78 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

and bring Jerrold back. It's beastly for you. But
you'll do it, won't you?"

"I'll do anything."

It was the beastliest thing she had ever had to do,
but she did it.

From where she drew up in the drive at Medlicote
she could see the tennis courts. She could see Jerrold
playing in the men's singles. He stood up to the net,
smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was
turned to her as he stood.

She heard him shout. She heard him laugh. She
saw him turn to come up the court, facing her.

And when he saw her, he knew.

u

He had waited ten minutes in the gallery outside his
father's room. Eliot had asked Anne to go in and help
him while Jerrold stood by the door to keep his mother
out. She was no good, Eliot said. She lost her head
just when he wanted her to do things. You could
have heard her all over the house crying out that she
couldn't bear it.

She opened her door and looked out. When she saw
Jerrold she came to him, slowly, supporting herself by
the gallery rail. Her eyes were sore with crying and
there was a flushed thickening about the edges of her
mouth.

"So you've come back," she said. "You might go
in and tell me how he is."

"Haven't you seen him?"

"Of course I've seen him. But I'm afraid, Jerrold.
It was awful, awful, the haemorrhage. You can't

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 79

think how awful. I daren't go in and see it again.
I shouldn't be a bit of good if I did. I should only faint,
or be ill or something. I simply can not bear it."

"You mustn't go in," he said.

"Who's with him?"

"EUot and Anne."

"Anne?"

"Yes."

" Jerrold, to think that Anne should be with him and
me not. "

"Well, she'll be all right. She can stand things."

"It's all very well for Anne. He isn't her husband."

"You'd better go away, Mother."

"Not before you tell me how he is. Go in, Jerrold. "

He knocked and went in.

His father was sitting up in his white, slender bed,
raised on EUot's arm. He saw his face, strained and
smoothed with exhaustion, sallow white against the
pillows, the back-di^wn-mouth, the sharp, peaked nose,
the iron grey hair, pointed with sweat, sticking to the
forehead. A face of piteous, tired patience, waiting.
He saw Eliot's face, close, close beside it by the edge of
the pillow, grave and sombre and intent.

Anne was crossing the room from the bed to the wash-
stand. Her face was very white but she had an ah- of
great competence and composure. She carried a white
basin brimming with a reddish froth. He saw Uttle red
specks splashed on the sleeve of her white linen gown.
He shuddered.

Eliot made a sign to him and he went back to the door
where his mother waited.

"Is he better?" she whispered. "Can I come in?"

1 80 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

JeiTold shook his head. " Better not — yet."

" You'U send for me if — if — "

"Yes."

He heard her traiUng away along the gallery. He
went into the room. He stood at the foot of the bed and
stared, stared at his father lying there in Eliot's arms.
He would have liked to have been in Eliot's place, closQ
to him, close, holding him. As it was he could do
nothing but stand and look at him with that helpless,
agonized stare. He had to look at him, to look and
look, punishmg himseU with sight for not having seen.

His eyes felt hot and brittle; they kept on filling
with tears, burned themselves dry and filled again.
His hand clutched the edge of the footrail as if only so
he could keep his stand there.

A stream of warm air came through the open wmdows.
Everything in the room stood still in it, unnaturaQy
still, waiting. He was aware of the pattern of the
window curtains. Blue parrots perched on brown
branches among red flowers on a white groimd; it all
hung very straight and still, waiting.

Anne looked at him and spoke. She was standing
beside the bed now, holding the clean basin and a towel,
ready.

" Jerrold, you might go and get some more ice. It's
in the bucket in the bath-room. Break it up into little
pieces, like that. You split it with a needle. "

He went to the bath-room, moving like a sleep-
walker, wrapped in his dream-like horror. He found
the ice, he broke it into little pieces, like that. He was
very careful and conscientious about the size, and
grateful to Anne for giving him something to do. Then

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 81

he went back again and took up his station at the foot
of the bed and waited. His father still lay back on his
pillow, propped by EUot's ann. His hands were folded
on his chest above the bedclothes.

Anne still stood by the bed holding her basin and her
towel ready. From time to time they gave him Uttle
pieces of ice to suck.

Once he opened his eyes, looked roimd the room and
spoke. " Is your mother there? "

"Do you want her?" EUot said.

"No. Itll only upset her. Don't let her come in/'

He clos^ his eyes and opened them again.

"Is that Anne?"

" Yes. Who did you think it was? "

"I don't know . . . I'm sorry, Anne."

"Darling " the word broke from a tender

inarticulate sound she made.

Then: " Jerrold ," he said.

Jerrold came closer. His father's right arm un-
folded itself and stretched out towards him along the
bed.

Anne whispered, "Take his hand." Jerrold took it.
He could feel it tremble as he touched it.

"It's aU right, Jeny," he said. "It's all right."
He gave a little choking cough. His eyes darkened
with a sudden anxiety, a fear. His hand slackened.
His head sank forward. Anne came between them.
Jerrold felt the slight thrust of her body pushing him
aside. He saw her arms stretched out, and the white
gleam of the basin, then, the haemorrhage, jet after
jet. Then his father's face tilted up on Ehot's arm,
very white, and Anne stooping over him tenderly, and

82 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

her hand with the towel, wiping the red foam from
his Ups.

Then eyes glazed between half-shut lids, mouth open,
and the noise of death.

Eliot's arm laid down its burden. He got up and put
his hand on Jerrold's shoulder and led him out of the
room. "Go out into the air," he said. "I'll tell
Mother. "

Jerrold staggered downstairs, and through the hall
and out into the blinding simshine.

Far down the avenue he could hear the whirring of
the car coming back from Cheltenham; the lines of the
beech trees opened fan-wise to let it through. He saw
Colin sitting up beside Scarrott.

Above his head a lattice ground and clattered.
Somebody was going through the front rooms, shutting
the windows and pulUng down the bUnds.

Jerrold turned back into the house to meet Colin
there.

Upstairs his father's door opened and shut softly and
Anne came out. She moved along the gallery to her
room. Between the dark rails he could see her white
skirt, and her arm, hanging, and the little specks of red
splashed on the white sleeve.

• ••

m

Jerrold was afraid of Anne,, and he saw no end to his
fear. He had been dashed against the suffering he was
trying to put away from him and the shock of it had
killed in one hour his young adolescent passion. She
would be for ever associated with that suffering. He
would never see Anne without thinking of his father's

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 83

leath. He would never think of his father's death
pvithout seeing Anne. He would see her for ever through
an atmosphere of pain and horror, moving as she had
moved in his father's room. He couldn't see her any-
other way. This intolerable memory of her effaced all
other memories, memories of the child Anne with the
rabbit, of the young, happy Anne who walked and
rode and played with him, of the strange, mysterious
Anne he had found yesterday in her room at dawn.
That Anne belonged to a time he had done with.
There was nothing left for him but the Anne who had
come to tell him his father was dying, who had brought
him to his father's death-bed, who had) boimd herself
up inseparably with his death, who only moved from
the scene of it to appear dressed in black and carrying
the flowers for his funeral.

She was wrapped roimd and round with death and
death, nothing but death, and with Jerrold's suffering.
When he saw her he suffered again. And as his way
had always been to avoid suffering, he avoided Anne.
His eyes tinned from her if he saw her coming. He
spoke to her without looking at her. He tried not to
think of her. When he had gone he would try not to
remember.

His one idea was to go, to get away from the place
his father had died in and from the people who had
seen him die. He wanted new imknown faces, new
unknown voices that would not remind him

Ten days after his father's death the letter came from
John Severn. He wrote:

", . . I'm delighted about Sir Charles Durham.
You are a lucky devil. Any chap Sir Charles takes a

84 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINOS

fancy to is bound to get on. He can't help himself.
You're not afraid of hard work, and I can tell you we
give our Assistant Commissioners all they want and a
lot more.

"It'll be nice if you bring Anne out with you. If
you're stationed anywhere near us we ought to give
her the jolliest time in her life between us."

'*But Jerrold," said Adeline when she had read this
letter. "You're not going out now. You must wire
and tell him so."

"Why not now?"

"Because, my dear boy, you've got the estate and
you must stay and look after it."

"Barker'll look after it. That's what he's there for."

"Nonsense, Jerrold. There's no need for you to go
out to India."

"There is need. I've got to go."

"You haven't. There's every need for you to stop
where you are. Eliot will be going abroad if Sir Martin
Crozier takes him on. And if Colin goes into the dip«
lomatic service Goodness knows where he'll be sent to."

"Colin won't be sent anywhere for another four
years."

"No. But he'll be at Cheltenham or Cambridge half
the time. I must have one son at home."

"Sorry, Mother. But I can't stand it here. I've
got to go, and I'm going."

To all her arguments and entreaties he had one
answer: He had got to go and he was going.
I Adeline left him and went to look for Eliot whom
she found in his room packing to go back to London.
She came soblnng to Eliot.

r.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 15

''It's too dreadfully hard. As if it weren't bad
enough to lose my darling husband I must lose all my
sons. Not one of you will stay with me. And there's
Anne going off with Jerrold. She may have him with
her and I mayn't. She's taken everything from me.
You'd have said if a wife's place was anywhere it was
with her dying husband. But no. She was allowed to
be with him and I was tinned out of his room."

"My dear Mother, you know you weren't."

"I was. You turned me out yomiself, EKot, and had
Anne in."

"Only because you couldn't stand it and she could."

"I daresay. She hadn't the same feelings."

"She had her own feelings, anyhow, only she con-
trolled them. She stood it because she never thought
of her feelings. She only thought of what she could do
to help. She was magnificent."

"Of course you think so, because you're in love with
her. She must take you, too. As if Jerrold wasn't
enough."

"She hasn't taken me. She probably won't if I ask
her. You shouldn't say those things. Mother. You
don't know what you're talking about."

"I know I'm the most unhappy woman in the world.
How am I going to live? I can't stand it if Jerry goes."

"He's got to go, Mother."

"He hasn't. Jerrold's place is here. He's got a duty
and a responsibility. Yom* dear father didn't leave
him the estate for him to let it go to wrack and ruin.
It's most cruel and wrong of him."

"He can't do anything else. Don't you see why he
wants to go? He can't stand the place without Father."

86 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS

"IVe got to stand it. So he may."
"Well, he won't, that's all. He simply funks it."
" He always was an arrant coward where trouble was
concerned. He doesn't think of other people and how
bad it is for them. He leaves me when I want him
most."

"It's hard on you, Mother; but you can't stop him.
And I don't think you ought to try."

"Oh, everybody tells me what I ought to do. My
children can do as they like. So can Anne. She and
Jerrold can go off to India and amuse themselves as if
nothing had happened and it's all right."
But Anne didn't go off to India.
When she spoke to Jerrold about going with him his
hard, imhappy face showed her that he didn't want her.
"You'd rather I didn't go," she said gently.
"It isn't that, Anne. It isn't that I don't want you.
It's — it's simply that I want to get away from here,
to get away from everythmg that remmds me —
I shall go off my head if I've got to remember every
minute, every time I see somebody who — I want to
make a clean break and grow a new memory."
"I understand. You needn't tell me."
"Mother doesn't. I wish you'd make her see it." '
"FUtry. But it's aU right, Jerrold. I won't go."
"Of course you'll go. Only you won't think me a
brute if I don't take you out with me?"

"I'm not going out with you. In fact, I don't think
I'm going at all. I only wanted to because of going out
together and because of the chance of seeing you when
you got leave. I only thought of the heavenly times
we might have had."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS 87

"DonH — don't, Anne."

"No, I won't. After all, I shouldn't care a rap about
Ambala if you weren't there. And you may be stationed
mi]^s away. I'd rather go back to Ilf ord and do farming.
ETer so much rather. India would really have wasted
a lot of time."

f "Oh, Anne, I've spoilt all your pleasure."
J "No, you haven't. There isn't any pleasure to
^j^oil — now."

"What a brute — what a cad you must think me."
"I don't, Jerry. It's not your fault. Things have
just happened. And you see, I imderstand. I felt the
same about Aimtie Adeline after Mother died. I didn't
want to see her because she reminded me — and yet,
really, I loved her all the time."
"You won't go back on me for it?"
"I wouldn't go back on you whatever you did. And
you musn't keep on thinking I want to go to India.
I don't care a rap about India itself. I hate Anglo-
Indians and I simply loathe hot places. And Daddy
doesn't want me out there, really. I shall be much
happier on my farm. And it'U save a lot of expense, too.
Just think what my outfit and passage would have
cost."

"You wouldn't have cared what it cost if — "
"There isn't any if. I'm not lying, really."
Not lying. Not lying. She would have given up
more than India to save Jerrold that pang of memory.
.Only, when it was all over and he had sailed without
her, she reahzed in one wounding flash that what she
had given up was Jerrold himself.

ELIOT AND ANNS

Anne did not go back to her Ilford farm at once*
Adeline had made that impossible.

At the prospect of Anne's going her resentment died
down as suddenly as it had risen. She forgot that
Anne had taken her sons' affection and her place beside
her husband's deathbed. And though she couldn't
help feeling rather glad that Jerrold had gone to India
without Anne, she was sorry for her. She loved her
and she meant to keep her. She said she simply could
not bear it if Anne left her, and was it the time to choose
when she wanted her as she had never wanted her
before? She had nobody to turn to, as Anne knew.
Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams and people
were all very well ; but they were outsiders.

"It's the inside people that I want now, Anne.
You're deep inside, dear. "

Yes, of course she had relations. But relations ware
no use. They were all wrapped up in their own tire-
some affairs, and there wasn't one of them she cared
for as she cared for Anne.

" I couldn't care more if you were my own daughter.
Darling Robert felt about you just the same. You
can'fleave me. "

And Anne didn't. She never could resist unhappi-
ness. She thought: "I was glad enough to stop with

88

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 89

her through all the happy times. I'd be a perfect
beast to go and leave her now when she's miserable and
hasn't got anybody."

It would have been better for Anne if she could have
gone. Robert Fielding's death and Jerrold's absence
were two griefs that inflamed each other; they came
together to make one immense, intolerable wound.
And here at Wyck, she couldn't move without coming
upon something that touched it and stimg it to fresh
pain. But Anne was not like Jerrold, to turn from
what she loved because it hiut her. For as long as she
could remember all her happiness had come to her at
Wyck. If xmhappiness came now, she had got, as
EUotsaid, "to take it."

And so she stayed on through the autiunn, then over
Christmas to the New Year; this time because of Colin
who was suffering from depression. Colin had never
got over his father's. death and Jerrold's going; and the
last thing Jerrold had said to her before he went was:
"You'll look after Col-Col, won't you? Don't let him
go grousing about by himself. "

Jerrold had always expected her to look after Colin.
At seventeen there was still something piteous and
breakable about him, something that clung to you for
help. Eliot said that if Colin didn't look out he'd be
a regular neurotic. But he owned that Anne was good
for him.

"I don't know what you do to him, but he's better
when you're there. "

Eliot was the one who appeared to have recovered
first/ He met the shock of his father's death with a
d^ant energy and will.

90 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

He was working now at bacteriology under Sir
Martin Crozier. Covered with a white linen coat, in
a white-washed room of inconceivable cleanness,
surrounded by test-tubes and mixing jars, Eliot spent
the best part of the day handling the germs of the
deadUest diseases; making cultures, examining them
imder the microscope; preparing vaccines. He went
home to the brown velvety, leathery study in his
Welbeck Street flat to write out his notes, or read
some monograph on inoculation; or he dined with a
colleague and talked to him about bacteria.

At this period of his youth EUot had more than ever
the appearance of inhuman preoccupation. His dark,
serious face detached itself with a sort of sullen apathy
from the social scene. He seemed to have no keen
interests beyond his slides and mixing jars and test-
tubes. Women, for whom his indifference had a
perverse fascination, said of him: "Dr. Fielding isn't
interested in people, only in their diseases. And not
really m diseases, only in then- germs. "

They never suspected that Eliot was passionate, and
that a fierce pity had driven him into his profession.
The thought of preventable disease filled him with fury;
he had no tolerance for the society that tolerated it.
He suffered because he had a clearer vision and a pro-
founder sense of suffering than most persons. Up to
the time of his father's death all EUot's suffering had
been other people's. He couldn't rest till he had done
something to remove the cause of it.

Add to this an insatiable curiosity as to causes, and
you have the main bent of EUot's mind.

And it seemed to him that there was nobody but

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 91

Anne who saw that hidden side of him. She knew that
he was sorry for people, and that being sorry for them
had made him what he was, Uke Jerrold and yet unhke
him. Eliot was attracted to suffering by the same
sensitiveness that made Jerrold avoid everything once
associated with it.

And so the very thing that Jerrold couldn't bear
to remember was what drew Eliot closer to Anne.
He saw her as Jerrold had seen her, moving, composed
and competent, in his father's room; he saw her stoop-
ing over him to help Tiim, he saw the specks of blood
on her white sleeve; and he thought of her with the
more tenderness. From that instant he really loved
her. He wanted Anne as he had never conceived him-
self wanting any woman. He could hardly remember
his first adolescent feeling for her, that confused mixture *
of ignorant desire and fear, so different was it from the
intense, clear passion that possessed him now. At
night when his work was done, he lay in bed, not sleep-
ing, thinking of Anne with desire that knew itself too
weU to be afraid. Anne was the one thmg necessary
to hhn beside his work, necessary as a Uvmg part of
himself. She could only not come before his work
because Eliot's work came before himself and his own
happiness. When he went downjevery other week-end
to Wyck-on-the-Hill he knew that it was to see Anne.

His mother knew it too.

"I wish Eliot would marry," she said.

"Why?" said Anne.

"Because then he wouldn't be so keen on going off
to look for germs m disgusting climates. "

Anne wondered whether Adeline knew Eliot.

92 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS

For Eliot talked to her about his work as he walked
with her at a fine swinging pace over the open country,
taking all his exercise now while he could get it. That
was another thing he liked about Anne Severn, her
splendid physical fitness; she could go stride for stride
with him, and mile for mile, and never tire. Her mind,
too, was robust and active, and full of curiosity; it
listened by the hour and never tired. It could move,
undismayed, among horrors. She could see, as he saw,
the "beauty'' of the long trains of research by which
Sir Martin Crozier had tracked down the bacillus of
amoebic dysentery and established the difference be-
tween typhoid wid Malta fever.

Once started on his subject, the grave, sullen Eliot
talked excitedly.

"You do see, Anne, how thrilling it is, don't you?
For me there's nothing but bacteriology. I always
meant to go in for it, and Sir Martin's magnificent.
Absolutely top-hole. You see, all these disgusting
diseases can be prevented. It's inconceivable that they
should be tolerated in a civilized country. People can't
care a rap or they couldn't sleep in their beds. They
ought to get up and make a public row about it, to
insist on compulsory inoculation for everybody whether
they like it or not. It really isn't enough to cxure
people of diseases when they've got them. We ought
to see that they never get them, that there aren't any
to get . . . What we don't know yet is the complete
behaviour of all these bacteria amoAg themselves.
A bad bacillus may be doing good work by holding
down a worse one. It's conceivable that if we suc-
ceeded in exterminating all known diseases we might

ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS 93

rdease an unknown one, supremely horrible, that would
extenninate the race. "

"Oh Eliot, how awful. How can you sleep in your
bed?"

"You needn't worry. It's only a nightmare idea of
mine."

And so on and so on, for he was still so young that he
wanted Anne to be excited by the things that excited
him. And Anne told him all about her Ilf ord farm and
what she meant to do on it. Eliot didn't behave like
Aunt Adeline, he listened beautifully, like Uncle Robert
and Jerrold, as if it was really most important that you
should have a farm and work on it.
Jgf»"What I want is to sell it and get one here. I don't
want to be anywhere else. I can't tell you how fright-
fully home-fiick I am when I'm away. I keep on
seeing those gables with the Uttle stone balls, and the
peacocks, and the fields down to the Manor Farm.
And the hills, EUot. When I'm away I'm always
dreaming that I'm trying to get back to them and
something stops me. Or I see them and they turn into
something else. I shan't be happy till I can come back
for good."

"You don't want to go to India?" EUot's heart
began to beat as he asked his question.

" I want to work. To work hard. To work till I'm
so dead tired that I roll off to sleep the minute I get
into bed. So tired that I can't dream."

"That isn't right. You're too young to feel like
that, Anne."

"I do feel like it, You feel like it yourself — My
farm is to me what your old bacteria are to you."

94 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Oh, if I thought it was the farm ''

"Why, what else did you think it was?'*

Eliot couldn't bring himself to tell her. He took
refuge in apparent irrelevance.

"You know Father left me the Manor Farm house,
don't you?"

"No, I didn't. I suppose he thought you'd want to
come back, like me."

"Well, I'm glad I've got it. Mother's got the Dower
House in Wyck. But she'll stay on here till "

"Till Jerrold comes back," said Anne bravely.

"I don't suppose Jerry '11 turn her out even then.
Unless "

But neither he nor Anne had the courage to say
"unless he marries. "

Not Anne, because she couldn't trust herself with
the theme of Jerrold's marrying. Not Eliot, because
he had Jerrold's word for it that if he married anybody,
ever, it would not be Anne.

• • •

m

It was this assurance that made it possible for him
to say what he had been thinking of saying all the time
that he talked to Anne about his bacteriology. Bac-
teriology was a screen behind which Eliot, uncertain
of Anne's feelings, sL Jtered himself against irrevocable
disaster. He meant to ask Anne to marry him, but he
kept putting it ofif because, so long as he didn't know for
certain that she wouldn't have him, he was at liberty to
think she would. He would not be taking her from
Jerrold. Jerrold, inconceivable ass, didn't want her.
Eliot had made sure of that months ago, the night before

ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS dijt

Jerrold Bailed. He had simply put it to him: what did
he mean to do about Aime Severn? And Jerrold had
made it very plain that his chief object in going to India
was to get away from Anne Severn and Everything.
Eliot \knew Jerrold too well to suspect his sincerity,
so he considered that the way was now honorably open
to him.

His only uncertainty was Anne herself. He had
meant to give her a year to forget Jerrold in, if she was
ever going to forget him; though in moments of deeper
insight he realized that Anne was not likely to forget,
nor to marry anybody else as long as she remembered.

Yet, Eliot reasoned, women did marry, even remem-
bering. They married and were happy. You saw it
every day. He was content to take Anne on her own
terms, at any cost, at any risk. He had never been
afraid of risks, and once he had faced the chance of
her refusal all other dangers were insignificant.

A year was a long time, and Eliot had to consider
the probabiUty of his going out to Central Africa with
Sir Martin Crozier to investigate sleeping sickness. He
wanted the thing settled one way or another before he
went.

He put it off again till the next week-end. And in
the meanwhile Sir Martin Crozier had seen him. He
was starting in the spring and EUofifWas to go with him.

It was on Simday evening that he spoke to Anne,
sitting with her under the beeches at the top of the
field where she and Jerrold had sat together. Eliot had
chosen his place badly.

"I wouldn't bother you so soon if I wasn't going
away, but I simply must — must know ''

96 ANNE SEVERN AND THE ITELDINGS

"Must know what?"

"Whether you care for me at all. Not much, of
course, but just enough not to hate marrying me.''

Anne turned her face full on hun and looked at him
with her innocent, candid eyes. And all she said was,
You do know about Jerrold, don't you?"
Oh God, yes. I know all about him."
He's why I can't."

"I tell you, I know all about Jerrold. He isn't a
good enough reason."

"Good enough for me."

"Not unless " But he couldn't say it.

"Not unless he cares for me. That's why you're
asking me, then, because you know he doesn't."

"Well, it wouldn't be much good if I knew he did."

"Eliot, it's awful of me to talk about it, as if he'd
said he did. He never said a word. He never will."

"I'm afraid he won't, Anne."

"Don't imagine I ever thought he would. He never
did anything to make me think it for a minute, really."

"Are you quite sure he didn't?"

"Quite sure. I made it all up out of my head. My
silly head. I don't care what you think of me so long
as you don't think it was Jerry's fault. I should go on
caring for him whatever he did or didn't do."

"I know you would. But it's possible "

"To care for two people and marry one of them, no
matter which? It isn't possible for me. If I can't
have the person I want I won't have anybody."

"It isn't wise, Anne. I tell you I could make you
care for me. I know all about you. I know how you
think and how you feel. I understand you better than

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 97

Jerrold does. You'd be happy with me and you'd be
safe/'

'*It's no use. I'd rather be imhappy and in danger]
if it was with Jerrold."

"You'll be unhappy and in danger without him."

"I don't care. Besides, I shan't be. I shall work. ^
You'll work, too. It'll be so exciting that you'll soon
forget all about me."

''You know I shan't. And I'll never give you up,
imless Jerrold gets you."

"EUot — I only told you about Jerrold, because I
thought you ought to know. So that you mightn't
think it was anything in you."

"It isn't something in me, then? Tell me — if it
hadn't been for Jerry, do you think you might have
cared for me?"

"Yes. I do. I quite easily might. And I think it
would be a jolly good thing if I could, now. Only I
can't. I can't."

"Poor little Anne."

"Does it comfort you to think I'd have cared if it
hadn't been for Jerry?"

"It does, very much."

"Eliot — you're the only person I can talk to about
him. Do you mind telling me whether he said that to
you, or whether you just guessed it."

"What?"

"Why, that he wouldn't — ever "

"I asked him, Anne, because I had to know. And
he told me."

"I thought he told you."

"Yes, he told me. But I'm a cad for letting you

98 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

think he didn't care for you. I believe he did, or that
he would have cared — awfully — if my father hadn't
died just then. Your being in the room that day upset
him. If it hadn't been for that "

"Yes, but there wds that. It was like he was when
Binky died and he couldn't stand Yearp. Don't you
remember how he wouldn't let me go with him to see
Yearp because he said he didn't want me mixed up
with it. Well — I've been mixed up, that's all."

"Still, Anne, I'm certain he'd have cared — if that's
any comfort to you. You didn't make it up out of your
dear little head. We all thought it. Father thought
it. I believe he wanted it. If he'd only known!"

She thought : If he'd only known how he had hurt her,
he who had never hurt anybody in all his beautiful life.

" Dear Uncle Robert. There's no good talking about
it. I knew, the minute Jerry said he didn't want me to
go to India with him. "

"Is that why you didn't go?"

"Yes."

"That was a mistake, Anne. You should have gone."

"How could I, after that? And if I had, he'd only
have kept away."

"You should have let him go first and then gone
after him. You should have turned up suddenly,
in wonderful clothes, looking cheerful and beautiful.
So that you wiped out the memory he fimked. As it is
you've left him nothing else to think of. "

"I daresay that's what I should have done. But it's
too late. I can't do it now."

"I'm not so sure."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 99

"What, go after Jerrold? Hunt him down? Dress
up and scheme to make him marry me?''

"Yes. Yes. Yes."

"Eliot, you know I couldn't.''

"You said once you'd conmiit a crime for anybody
you cared about."

"A crime, yes. But not that. I'd rather die."

"You're too fastidious. It's only the imscrupulous
people who get what they want in this world. They
know what they want and go for it. They stamp on
everything and everybody that gets in their way."

"Oh, Eliot dear, I know what I want, and I'd go for
it. If only Jerrold knew, too."

"He would know if you showed him."
And that's just what I can't do."
Well, don't say I didn't give you the best possible
advice, against my own interests, too."

"It was sweet of you. But you see how impossible
it is."

"I see how adorable you are. You always were."

iv

For the first time in her life Adeline was furious.

She had asked Eliot whether he was or was not going
to marry Anne Severn, and was told that he had asked
her to marry him that afternoon and that she wouldn't
have him.

"Wouldn't have you? What's she thinking of?"

"You'd better ask her," said Eliot, never dreaming
that she would.

But that was what Adeline did. She came that
night to Anne's room just as Anne was getting into

li

100 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

bed. Unappeaaed by her defenseless attitude, she
attacked with violence.

''What's all this about Eliot asking you to marry
hun?"

Anne uncurled herself and sat up on the edge of her
bed.

"DidheteUyou?'*

"Yes. Of course he told me. He says you refused
him. Did you?"

"I'm afraid I did."

"Then Anne, you're a perfect little fool."

"But Auntie, I don't love him."

' ' Nonsense ; you love him as much as most people love
the men they marry. He's quite sensible. He doesn't
want you to go mad about him."

"He wants more than I can give him."

"Well, all I can say is if you can't give him what he
wants you'd no business to go about with him as you've
been doing."

"I've been going about with him all my life and I
never dreamed he'd want to marry me."

"What did you suppose he'd want?"

"Why, nothing but just to go about. As we always
did."

"You idiot."

"I don't see why you should be so cross about it."

Adeline sat down in the armchair at the head of the
bed, prepared to "have it out" with Anne.

"I suppose you think my son's happiness is nothing
to me? Didn't it occur to you that if you refuse him
he'll stick for years in that awful place he's going to?
Whereas if he had a wife in England there'd be a chance

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS 101

of his coming home now and then. Perhaps he'd never
go out again."

*'I'm sorry, Auntie. I can't marry Eliot even to
keep him in England. Even to please you."

*'Even to save his life, you mean. You don't care if
he dies of some hideous tropical disease. "

''I care awfully. But I can't marry him. He knows
why."

"It's more than I do. If you're thinking of Jerrold,
you needn't. I thought you'd done with that school-
girlish nonsense."

"I'm not 'thinking' of him. I'm not 'thinking' of
anybody and I wish you'd leave me alone."

" My dear child, how can I leave you alone when I see
you making the mistake of your life? Eliot is abso-
lutely the right person for you, if you'd only the sense
to see it. He's got more character than anybody I
know. Much more than dear Jerry. He'll be ten
times more interesting to live with."

"I thought Jerrold was your favourite."

"No, Eliot, my dear. Always Eliot. He was my
first baby. ' '

"Well, I'm awfully sorry you mind so much. And
I'd marry Eliot if I could. I simply hate him to be
unhappy. But he won't be. He'll live to be fright-
fully glad I didn't . . . What, aren't you going to kiss
me good-night? "

Adeline had risen and turned away with the great
dignity of her righteous anger.

"I don't feel like it," she said. "I think you've
been thoroughly selfish and unkind. I hate ^Is who
go on like that — making a man mad about you by

102 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

pretending to be his comrade, and then throwing him
over. IVe had more men in love with me, Anne, than
youVe seen in your life, but I never did that.^^

"Oh Auntie, what about Father? And you were
engaged to him.''

"Well, anyhow,*' said Adeline, softened by the recol-
lection, ''I was engaged."

She smiled her enchanting smile; and Anne, observ-
ing the breakdown of dignity, got up ofiF the bed and
kissed her.

"I don't suppose," she said, "that Father was the
only one."

"He wasn't. But then, with me, my dear, it was
their own risk. They knew where they were."

In March, nineteen eleven, Eliot went out to Central
Africa. He stayed there two years, investigating
malaria and sleeping sickness. Then he went on to
the Straits Settlements and finally took a partnerslup
in a practice at Penang.

Anne left Wyck at Easter and returned in August
because of Colin. Then she went back to her Bford
farm.

The two years passed, and in the spring of the third
year, nineteen fourteen, she came again.

VI

QUEENIE

Something awful had happened. Adeline had told
Anne about it.

It seemed that Colin in his second year at Cam-
bridge, when he should have given his whole mind to
reading for the Diplomatic Sendee, had had the im-
prudence to get engaged. And to a girl that Adeline
had never heard of, about whom nothing was known
but that she was remarkably handsome and that her
family (Courthopes of Leicestershire) were, in Adeline's
brief phrase, "aU right.''

From the terrace they could see, coming up the lawn
from the goldfish pond, Colin and his girl.

Queenie Courthope. She came slowly, her short
Russian skirt swinging out from her ankles. The bril-
liance of her face showed clear at a distance, vermilion
on white, flaming; hard, crystal eyes, sweeping and
flashing; bobbed hair, brown-red, shining in the sun.
Then a dominant, squarish jaw, and a mouth exquis-
itely formed, but thin, a vermilion thread drawn be-
tween her staring, insolent nostrils and the rise of her
round chin.

This face in its approach expressed a profoimd, arro-
gant indifference to Adeline and Anne. Only as it
tiimed towards Colin its grey-black eyes lowered and
were soft dark under the black feathers of then? brows.

103

104 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

Colin looked back at it with a shy, adoring tenderness.

Queenie oould be even more superbly uninterested
than Adeline. In Adeline's self-absorption there was a
passive innocence, a candor that disarmed you, but
Queenie's was insolent and hostile; it took possession
of the scene and challenged every comer.

''Hallo, Anne!'* Colin shouted. "How did you get
here?''

"Motored down."

"I say, have you got a car?"

"Only just."

"Drove yourself?"

"Rather."

Queenie scowled as if there were something dis-
agreeable to her in the idea that Anne should have a
car of her own and drive it. She endured the introduc-
tion in silence and addressed herself with an air of ex-
clusiveness to Colin.

"What are we going to do?"

"Anything you like," he said.

"I'll play you singles, then."

"Anne might like to play," said Colin. But he still
looked at Queenie, as she flamed in her beauty.

"Oh, three's a rotten game. You can't play the
two of us unless Miss Severn handicaps me."

"She won't do that. Anne could take us both on
and play a decent game."

Queenie picked up her racquet and stood between
them, beaming her skirts with little strokes of irritated
impatience. Her eyes were fixed on Colin, trying, you
could see, to dominate him.

We'd better take it in turns," he said.

K

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS 105

"Thanks, Col-Col. I*d rather not play, IVe driven
ninety-seven miles."

"ReaUy rather?"

Queenie backed towards the court.

" Oh, come on, Colin, if you're coming."

He went.

"What do you think of Queenie?" Addine said.

"She's very handsome."

"Yes, Anne. But it isn't a nice face. Now, is it?"

Anne couldn't say it was a nice face.

"It's awful to think of Colin being married to it.
He's only twenty-one now, and she's seven years older.
If it had been anybody but Colin. If it had been Eliot
or Jerrold I shouldn't have minded so much. They
can look after themselves. He'll never stand up against
that horrible girl."

"She does look terribly strong."

"And cruel, Anne, as if she might hurt him. I don't
want him to be hurt. I can't bear her taking him
away from me. My little Col-Col. ... I did hope,
Anne, that if you wouldn't have Eliot "

"I'd have Colin? But Auntie, I'm years older than

he is. He's a baby."

"If he's a baby he'll want somebody cdder to look

after him."

"Queenie's even better fitted than I am, then."
"Do you think, Anne, she proposed to Colin?"
"No. I shouldn't think it was necessary."
"/ should say she was capable of anything. My

only hope is they'll tire each other out before they're

married and hreok it ofiF."

All afternoon on the tennis court below Queenie

106 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

played against Colin. She played vigorously, excitedly,
savagely, to win. She couldn't hide her annoyance
when he beat her.

"What was I to do?'' he said. "You don't Uke it
when I beat you. But if I was beaten you wouldn't
Uke meJ^

u

Adeline's only hope was not realized. They hadn't
had time to tire of each other before the War broke
out. And Colin insisted on marrying before he joined
up. Their engagement had left him nervous and luifit,
and his idea was that, once married, he would present
a better appearance before the medical examiners.

But after a month of Queenie, Colin was more ner-
vous and unfit than ever.

"I can't think," said Adeline, "what that woman
does to him. She'll wear him out."

So CoUn waited, trying to get fitter, and afraid to
volimteer lest he should be rejected.

Everybody aroimd him was moving rapidly. Queenie
had taken up motoring, so that she could drive an
ambulance car at the front. Anne had gone up to
London for her Red Cross training. EUot had left his
practice to his partner at Penang and had come home
and joined the Army Medical Corps.

EUot, home on leave for three days before he went
out, tried hard to keep Colin back from the War. In
EUot's opinion CoUn was not fit and never would be
fit to fight. He was just behaving as he always had
behaved, rushing forward, trying insanely to do the
thing he never could do.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 107

" Do you mean to say they won't pass me? '' he asked.

'' Oh, they'U pass you all right," Eliot said. ''They'll
give you an expensive training, and send you into the
trenches, and in any time from a day to a month
you'll be in hospital with shell-shock. Then you'll be
discharged as unfit, having wasted everybody's time
and made a danmed nuisance of yourself. ... I sup-
pose I ought to say it's splendid of you to want to go
out. But it isn't splendid. It's idiotic. You'll be
simply butting in where you're not wanted, taking a
better man's place, taking a better man's commission,
taking a better man's bed in a hospital. I tell you we
don't want men who are gomg to crumple up in theur
first action."

''Do you think I'm going to fimk then?" said poor
Colin.

"Fimk? Oh, Lord no. You'll stick it till you drop,
till you're paralyzed, till you've lost your voice and
memory, till you're an utter wreck. There'll be enough
of 'em, poor devils, without you, Col-Col."

"But why should I go like that more than anybody
else?"

" Because you're made that way, because you haven't
got a nervous system that can stand the racket. The
noises alone will do for you. You'll be as right as rain
if you keep out of it."

"But Jerrold's coming back, ffe'll go out at once.
How can I stick at home when he's gone?"

"Heaps of good work to be done at home."

" Not by men of my age."

"By men of your nervous organization. Your going
out would be sheer waste."

108 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Why not?'' Does it matter what becomes of me?''

"No. It doesn't. It matters, thou^, that you'll be
taking a better man's place."

Now Colin really did want to go out and fight, as he
had always wanted to follow Jerrold's lead; he wanted
it so badly that it seemed to him a form of self-indul-
gence; and this idea of taking a better man's place so
worked on him that he had almost decided to give it
up, since that was the sacrifice required of him, when
he told Queenie what Eliot had said.

" AH I can say is," said Queenie, "that if you don't
go out I shall give you up. I've no use for men with
cold feet."

" Can't you see," said Colin (he almost hated Queenie
in that moment), "what I'm afraid of? Being a
damned nuisance. That's what EUot says I'll be. I
don't know how he knows."

"He doesn't know everything. If my brother tried
to stop my going to the front I'd jolly soon tell him to
go to hell. I swear, Colin, if you back out of it I won't
speak to you again. I'm not asking you to do any-
thing I funk myself."

"Oh, shut up. I'm going all right. Not because
you've asked me, but because I want to."

"If you didn't I should think you'd feel pretty
rotten when I'm out with my Field Ambulance," said
Queenie.

"Damn your Field Ambulance! . . . No, I didn't
mean that, old thing; it's splendid of you to go. But
you'd no business to suppose I funked. I may funk.
Nobody knows till they've tried. But I was going all
right till Eliot put me ofif."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 109

"Oh, if you're put off as easily as all that "

She was intolerable. She seemed to think he was
only going because she'd shamed him into it.

That evening he sang:

'' ' What are ^u doing all the day, Rendai, my bob?
What are you doing all the day, my pretty one?'"

He understood tiiat song now.

'' ' What will you leave to your lover, Rendal, my son?
What will you leave to your lover, my pretty one?
A rope to hang her, mother,
A rope to hang her, mother. . . /"

"Go it, CJol-C!ol!" Out on the terrace Queenie
laughed her harsh, cruel laugh.

(( c

For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie do¥ni.' "

"'I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down,'"
Queenie echoed, with cUpped words, mocking him.

He hated Queenie.

And he loved her. At night, at ni^t, she would •
unbend, she would be tender and passionate, she would
touch him with quick, hurrying caresses, she would
put her arms round him and draw him to her, kissmg
and kissing. And with her young, beautiful body
pressed tight to him, with her mouth on his and her
eyes shining close and big in the darkness, Colin would
forget.

110 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

• • •

Ul

Dr. Cutler's Field Ambulance,

British Hospital,
Antwerp.

September Wth, 1914.

Dearest Auntie Adeline, — I haven't been able to
write before. There's been a lot of fighting all round
here and we're frightfully busy gettmg in wounded.
And when you've done you're too tired to sit up and
write letters. You simply roll into bed and drop off to
sleep. Sometimes we're out with the ambulances half
the night.

You needn't worry about me. I'm keeping awfully
fit. I am glad now I've always lived in the open air
and played games and ploughed my own land. My
muscles are as hard as any Tommie's. So are Queenie's.
You see, we have to act as stretcher bearers as well as
chauffeurs. You're not much good if you can't carry
your own woimded.

Queenie is simply splendid. She really doesn't know
what fear is, and she's at her very best under fire. It
sort of excites her and bucks her up. I can't help see-
ing how fine she is, though she was so beastly to poor
old Col-Col before he joined up. But talk of the War
bringing out the best in people, you should simply see
her out here with the woimded. Dr. Cutler (the Com-
mandant) thinks no end of her. She drives for him
and I drive for a Uttle doctor man called Dicky Cart-
wright. He's awfully good at his job and decent.
Queenie doesn't Uke him. I can't think why.

Good-bye, darling. Take care of yourself.

Your loving

Anne.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 111

Antwerp.
October Srd.

. . • You ask me what I really think of Queenie at
close quarters. ^Well, the quarters are very close and
I know she simply hates me. She was fearfully sick
when she foimd we were both in the same Corps. She's
always trying to get up a row about something. She'd
like to have me fired out of Belgium if she could, but
I mean to stay as long as I can, so I won't quarrel with
her. She can't do it all by herself. And when I feel
like going back on her I tell myself how magnificent
she is, so plucky and so clever at her job. I don't
wonder that half the men in our Corps are gone on her.
And there's a Belgian Colonel, the one Cutler gets his
orders from, who'd make a frantic fool of himself if
she'd let him. But good old Queenie sticks to her job
and behaves as if they weren't there. That makes
them madder. You'd have thought they'd never have
had the time to be such asses in, but it's wonderful what
a state you can get into in your few odd moments.
Dicky says it's the War whips you up and makes it all
the easier. I don't know. • • •

FURNES.

November.

That's where we are now. I simply can't describe
the retreat. It was too awful, and I don't want to
think about it. We've "settled" down in a house
we've commandeered and I suppose we shall stick here
till we're shelled out of it.

Talking of shelling, Queenie is funny. She's quite
annoyed if anybody besides herself gets anywhere near
a shell. We picked up two more stretcher-bearers in
Ostend and a queer little middle-aged lady out for a
job at the front. Cutler took her on as a sort of secre-
tary. At first Queenie was so frantic that she wouldn't

112 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

speak to her, and swore she'd make the Corps too hot
to hold her. But when she found that the Uttle lady
wasn't for the danger zone and only proposed to cook
and keep our accounts for us, she calmed down and
was quite decent. Then the other day Miss MuUins
came and told us that a bit of shell had chipped off the
comer of her kitchen. The poor old thii^ was ever so
proud and pleased about it, and Queenie snubbed her
frightfully, and said she wasn't in any danger at all,
and asked her how she'd enjoy it if she was out all day
imder fire, Uke us.

And she was furious with me because I had the luck
to get into the bombardment at Dixmude and she
hadn't. She talked as if I'd done her out of her liftll-
ing on purpose, whereas it only meant that I happened
to be on the spot when the ambulances were sent out
and she was away somewhere with her own car. She
really is rather vulgar about shells. Dicky says it's
a form of war snobbishness {he hasn't got a scrap
of it), but I think it really is because all the time she's
afraid of one of us being killed. It must be that.
Even Dicky owns that she's splendid, though he doesn't
like her. • . .

IV

Five months later.

The Manor,

Wyck-on-the-Hill,
Gloucestershire.

May SOth, 1916.

My darling Anne, — Queenie will have told you
about Colin. He was through all that frightful shelUng
at Ypres in April. He's been three weeks in the hos-
pital at Boulogne with shell-shock — had it twice —
and now he's back and in that Officers' Hospital in

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 113

Kensington, not a bit better. I really think Queenie
ought to get leave and come over and see him.

Eliot was perfectly right. He ought never to have
gone out. Ot course he was as plucky as they make
them — went back into the trenches after his first shell-
shock — but his UOTves couldn't stand it. Whether
they're treating him right or not, they don't seem to
be able to do anything for him.

I'm writing to Queenie. But tell her she must come
and see him.

Your loving

Adeline Fielding,

Three months later.

The Manor,
Wyck-on-thb-Hill,

GLOUCESTERSmRE.

August SOth.

Darling Anne, — Colin has been discharged at last
as incurable. He is with me here. I'm so glad to have
him, the darUng. But oh, his nerves are m an awful
state — all to bits. He's an utter wreck, my beautiful
CJolin; it would make your heart bleed to see him. He
can't sleep at night; he keeps on hearing shells; and
if he does sleep he dreams about them and wakes up
screaming. It's awful to hear a man scream. Anne,
Queenie must come home and look after him. My
nerves are going. I can't sleep any more than Colin.
I lie awake waiting for the scream. I can't take the
responsibility of hun alone, I can't really. After all,
she's his wife, and she made hun go out and fight,
though she knew what Eliot said it would do to Mm.

I

114 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

It's too cruel that it should have happened to Col-Ck)l
of all people.
Make that woman come.

Your loving

Adeline Fielding.

NiEUPORT.

September 6th, 1915.

Darling Auntie, — I'm so sorry about dear Col-
Col. And I quite agree that Queenie ought to go back
and look after him. But she won't. She sajrs her
work here is much more important and that she can't
give up hundreds of wounded soldiers for just one man.
Of course she is doing splendidly, and Cutler says he
can't spare her and she'd be simply thrown away on
one case. They think CoUn's people ought to look
after him. It doesn't seem to matter to either of them
that he's her husband. They've got into the way of
looking at everybody as a case. They say it's not even
as if CoUn could be got better so as to be sent out to
fight again. It would be sheer waste of Queenie.

But Cutler has given me leave to go over and see
him. I shall get to Wyck as soon as this letter.

Dear Col-Col, I wish I could do something for him.
I feel as if we could never, never do too much after all
he's been through. Fancy Eliot knowing exactly what
would happen.

Your loving

Anne.

NiEUPORT.

September 7ih. ^

Dear Anne, — Now that you have gone I think I
ought to tell you that it would be just as well if you

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 115

didn't come back. I've got a man to take your place;
Queenie picked him up at Dunkirk the day you sailed,
and he's doing very well.

The fact is we're getting on much better since you
left. There's perfect peace now. You and Queenie
didn't hit it off, you know, and for a job Uke oiu« it's
absolutely essential that everybody should pull to-
gether Uke one. It doesn't do to have two in a Corps
always at loggerheads.

I don't like to lose you, and I know you've done
splendidly. But I've got to choose between Queenie
and you, and I must keep her, if it's only because she's
worked with me all the time. So now that you've
made the break I take the opportimity of asking you
to resign. Personally I'm sorry, but the good of the
Corps must come before everything.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Cutler.

The Manor,

Wyck-on-the-Hill,
Gloucestershire.

September llth, 1915.

Dear Dicky, — This is only to say good-bye, as I
shan't see you again. Cutler's fired me out of the
Corps. He says it's because Queenie and I don't hit
it off. I shouldn't have thought that was my fault,
but he seems to think it is. He says there's been per-
fect peace since I left.

Well, we've had some tremendous times together,
and I wish we could have gone on.

Good-bye and Good Luck,

Yours ever,

Anne Severn.

^P. S. — Poor Colin Fielding's in an awful state. But

116 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

he's been a bit better since I came. Even if Cutler'd
let me come back I couldn't leave him. This is my
job. The queer thing is he's afraid of Queenie, so it's
just as well she didn't come home.

NiBXJPORT.

September ISth, 1915.

Dear Old Thing, — We're all furious here at the
way you've been treated. I've resigned as a protest,
and I'm going into the R. A. M. So has Miss MulUns
— resigned I mean — so Queenie's the only woman left
in the Corps. That'll suit her down to the groimd.

I gave myself the treat of telling Cutler what I jolly
well think of him. But of course you know she made
him hoof you out. She's been trying for it ever since
you joined. It's all rot his saying you didn't hit it
off with her, when everybody Imows you were a per-
fect angel to her. Why, you backed her every time
when we were all going for her. It's quite true that
the peace of God has settled on the Corps since you
left it; but that's only because Queenie doesn't rage
round any more.

You'll observe that she never went for Miss Mullins.
That's because Miss Mullins kept well out of the line
of fire. And if you hadn't joUy well distinguished your-
self there she'd have let you alone, too. The real trou-
ble began that day you were at Dixmude. It wasn't
a bit because she was afraid you'd be killed. Queenie
doesn't want you about when the War medals are
handed roimd. Everybody sees that but old Cutler.
He's too much gone on her to see anything. She can
twist him roimd and round and tie him up in knots.

But Cutler isn't in it now. Queenie's turned him
down for that young Noel Fenwick who's got your job.
Cutler's nose was a sight, I can tell you.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 117

Welly I'm not surprised that Queenie's husband funks
her. She's a terror. Worse than war.

Good-bye and Good Luck, Old Thmg, till we meet
again.

Yours ever,

Dicky Cabtweight.

VII
ADELINE

They would never know what it cost her to come
back and look after Colin. That knowledge was beyond
Adeline Fielding. She congratulated Anne and ex-
pected Anne to congratulate herself on being "well out
of it." Her safety was revolting and humiliating to
Anne when she thought of Queenie and Cutler and
Dicky^ and Eliot and Jerrold and all the allied armies
in the thick of it. She had left a world where life was
lived at its highest pitch of intensity for a world where
people were only half-alive. To be safe from the chance
of sudden violent death was to be only half-alive.

Her one consolation had been that now she would
see Jerrold. But she did not see him. Jerrold had
given up his appointment in the Pimjaub three weeks
before the outbreak of the war. His return coincided
with the retreat from Mons. He had not been in
England a week before he was in training on Salisbury
Plain. Anne had left Wyck when he arrived; and be-
fore he got leave she was in Belgium with her Field
Ambulance. And now, in October of nineteen fifteen,
when she came back to Wyck, Jerrold was fighting in
France.

At least they knew what had happened to Colin;
but about Eliot and Jerrold they knew nothing. Any-

118

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 119

thing might have happened to them since they had
written the letters that let them off from week to week,
telling them that they were safe. Anything might
happen and they might never know.

Anne's fear was dumb and secret. She couldn't talk
about Jerrold. She lived every minute in terror of
Adehne's talking, of the cries that came from her at
queer imexpected moments: between two cups of tea,
two glances at the mirror, two careful gestures of her
hands pinning up her hair.

"I cannot bear it if anything happens to Jerrold,
Anne."

"Oh Anne, I wonder what's happening to Jerrold.'*

"If only I knew what was happening to Jerrold."

"If only I knew where Jerrold was. Nothing's so
awful as not knowing."

And at breakfast, over toast and marmalade : " Anne,
I've got such an awful feeling .that something's hap-
pened to Jerrold. I'm sure these feelings aren't given
you for nothing. • . . You aren't eating anything,
darling. You miist eat."

Every morning at breakfast Anne had to look through
the lists of killed, missing and woimded, to save
Adeline the shock of coming upon Jerrold's or EUot's
name. Every morning Adeline gazed at Anne across
the table with the same look of strained and agonised
enquiry. Every morning Anne's heart tightened and
dragged, then loosened and lifted, as they were let ofif
for one more day.

One more day? Not one more hour, one minute.
Any second the wire from the War OflBice might come.

120 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

••

u

Anne never knew the moment when she was first
aware that Colm's mother was afraid of him. Aunt
AdeUne was very busy, making swabs and bandages.
Every day she went oflf to her War Hospital Supply
work at the Town Hall, and Anne was left to take care
of Colin. She began to wonder whether the swabs and
bandages were not a pretext for getting away from
Colin.

"It^s no use," Adeline said. "I cannot stand the
strain of it. Anne, he's worse with me than he is with
you. Everything I say and do is wrong. You don't
know what it was Uke before you came."

Anne did know. The awful thing was that Colin
couldn't bear to be left alone, day or night. He would
lie awake shivering with terror. If he dropped ofif to
sleep he woke screaming. At first Pinkney slept with
him. But Pinkney had joined up, and old WilMns, the
butler, was impossible because he snored.

Anne had her old room across the passage where she
had slept when they were children. And now, as then,
their doors were left open, so that at a sound from Colin
she could get up and go to him.

She was used to the lacerating, unearthly scream
that woke her, the scream that terrified Adeline, that
made her cover her head tight with the bed-clothes, to
shut it out, that made her lock her door to shut out
Colin. Once he had come into his mother's room and
she had f oimd him standing by her bed and looking at
her with the queer frightened face that frightened her.
She was always afraid of this happening agaiuw-

Anne couldn't bear to think of that locked door. She

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 121

was used to the sight of CoUn standmg in her doorway,
to the watches beside his bed where he lay shivering,
holding her hand tight as he used to hold it when he
was a child. To Anne he was "poor Col-Col" again,
the Uttle boy who was afraid of ghosts, only more
abandoned to terror, more imresisting.

He would start and tremble at any quick, unex-
pected movement. He would burst into tears at rfhy
sudden sound. Small noises, whisperings, murmurings,
creakings, soft shu£9ings, irritated him. Loud noises,
the slammmg of doors, the barking of dogs, the crowing
of cocks, made him writhe in agony. For Colin the
deep silence of the Manor was the ambush for some
stupendous, crashing, annihilatmg sound; sound that
was always coming and never came. The droop of the
mouth that used to appear suddenly in his moments of
childish anguish was fixed now, and fixed the little
tortured twist of his eyebrows and his look of anxiety
and fe£w. His head drooped, his shoulders were
hunched slightly, as if he cowered before some per-
petually falling blow.

On. fine warm days he Jay out on the terrace on
Adeline's long chair; on wet days he lay on the couch
in the Ubrary, or sat crouching over the fire. Anne
brought him milk or beef tea or Benger's Food every
two hours. He was content to be waited on; he had
no will to move, no desire to get up and do things for
himself. He lay or sat still, shivering every now and
then as he remembered or imagined some horror. And
as he was afraid to be left alone Anne sat with him.

"How can you say this is a quiet place?" he said.

"It's quiet enough now."

122 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

*'It isn't. It's full of noises. Loud; thundering
noises going on and on. Awful noises. . . . You
know what it is? It's the guns in France. I can hear
them all the time."

" No, Colin. That isn't what you hear. We're much
too far off. Nobody could hear them."

''I can."

"I don't think so."

"Do you mean it's noises in my head?"

"Yes. They'll go away when you're stronger,"
I shall never be strong again."
Oh yes, you will be. You're better already."
If I get better they'll send me out again."

"Never. Never again."

"I ought to be out. I oughtn't to be sticking here
doing nothing. . . . Anne, you don't think Queenie'U
come over, do you?"

"No, I don't. She's got much too much to do out
there." ,

"You know, that's what I'm afraid of, more than
anything, Queenie's coming. She'll tell me I funked.
She thinks I funked. She thinks that's what's the
matter with me."

"She doesn't. She knows it's your body, not you.
Your nerves are shaken to bits, that's all."

" I didn't funk, Anne." (He said it for the hundredth
time.) " I mean I stuck it all right. I went back after
I had shell-shock the first time — straight back into
the trenches. It was at the very end of the fighting
that I got it again. Then I couldn't go back. I
couldn't move."

"I know, Colin, I know."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 123

''Does Queenie know?''

''Of course she does. She understands perfectly.
Why, she sees men with shell-shock every day. She
knows you were splendid."

"I wasn't. But I wasn't as bad as she thinks me.
. . . Don't let her see me if she comes back."

"She won't come."

"She will. She will. She'll get leave some day.
Tell her not to come. Tell her she can't see me. Say
/ I'm off my head. Any old lie that'll stop her."

"Don't think about her."

•'I can't help thinking. She said such beastly
things. You can't think what disgusting things she
said.'^'

"She says them to everybody. She doesn't mean
them."

"Oh, doesn't she! ... Is that mother? You might
tell her I'm sleeping."

For Colin was afraid of his mother, too. He was
afraid that she would talk, that she would talk about
the War ^nd about Jerrold. Colin had been home six
weeks and he had not once spoken Jerrold's name. He
read his letters and handed them to Anne and Adeline
without a word. It was as if between him and the
thought of Jerrold there was darkness and a supreme,
nameless terror.

One morning at dawn Anne was wakened by Colin's
voice in her room.

"Anne, are you awake?"

The room was full of the white dawn. She saw him
standing in it by her bedside.

" My head's awfully queer," he said. "I can feel my

124 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

brain shaking and wobbling inside it, as if the convolu-
tions had come undone. Could they?"

"Of course they couldn't."

"The noise might have loosened them."

"It isn't your brain you feel, Colin. It^s your
nerves. It's just the shock still going on in them."

"Is it never going to stop?"

"Yes, when you're stronger. Go back to bed and
I'll come to you."

He went back. She slipped on her dressing-gown and
came to him. She sat by his bed and put her hand on
his forehead.

"There — it stops when you put your hand on."

"Yes. And you'll sleep."

Presently, to her joy, he slept.

She stood up and looked at him as he lay there in
the white dawn. He was utterly innocent, utterly
pathetic in his sleep, and beautiful. Sleep smoothed
out his vexed face and brought back the likeness of
the boy Colin, Jerrold's brother.

That morning a letter came to her from Jerrold. He
wrote: " Don't worry too much about Col-Col. He'll
be all right as long as you'll look after him."

She thought : " I wonder whether he remembers that
he asked me to."

But she was glad he was not there to hear Colin scream.

••• «

m

"Anne, can you sleep?" said Adeline. Colin had
gone to bed and they were sitting together in the draw-
ii^-room for the last hour of the evening.

"Not very well, when Colin has such bad nights."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS 125

'' Do you think he's ever going to get rigiht again?"

''Yes. But it'll take time."

"A long time?"

''Very long, probably."

"My dear, if it does, I don't know how I'm going
to stand it. And if I only knew what was happening
to Jerrold and Eliot. Sometimes I wonder how I've
lived through these five years. First, Robert's death;
then the War. And before that there was nothing but
perfect happiness. I think trouble's worse to bear when
you've known nothing but happiness before. ... If I
could only die instead of all these boys, Anne. Why
can't I? What is there to live for?"

"There's Jerrold and Eliot and Colin."

"Oh, my dear, Jerrold and Eliot may never come
back. And look at poor Colin. That isn't the Colin
I know. He'll never be the same again. I'd almost
rather he'd been killed than that he should be like
this. If he'd lost a leg or an arm. . . . It's all very
well for you, Anne. He isn't your son."

"You don't know what he is," said Anne. She
thought: "He's Jerrold's brother. He's what Jerrold
loves more than anjrthing."

"No," said Adeline. "Everything ended for me
when Robert died. I shall never marry again. I
couldn't bear to put anybody in Robert's place."

"Of course you couldn't. I know it's been awful
for you, Aimtie."

"I couldn't bear it, Anne, if I didn't believe that
tha^ is Something Somewhere. I can't think how you
get on without any religion."

"How do you know I haven't any?"

126 "^ANNB SEVBRN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Well, you're no faith in Anything. Have you,
ducky?"

"I don't know what I've faith in. It's too difficult.
If you loy« people, that's enough, I think. It keeps
you going through everything."

"No, it doesn't. It's all the other way about. It's
loving people that makes it all so hard. If you didn't
love them you wouldn't care what happened to them.
If I didn't love Colin I could bear his shell-shock
better."

"If / didn't love him, I couldn't bear it at all."

"I expect," said Adeline, "we both mean the same
thing."

Anne thought of AdeUne's locked door; and, in spite
of her love for her, she had a doubt. She wondered
whether in this matter of loving they had ever meant
the same thing. With Adeline love was a passive state
that began and ended in emotion. With Anne love was
power in action. More than anything it meant doing
things for the people that you loved. Adeline loved
her husband and her sons, but she had run away from
the sight of Robert's haemorrhage, she had tried to
keep back Eliot and Jerrold from the life they wanted,
she locked her door at night and shut Colin out. To
Anne that was the worst thing Adeline had done yet.
She tried not to think of that locked door.

"I suppose," said Adeline, "you'll leave me now
your father's coming home?"

John Severn's letter lay between them on the table.
He was retiring after twenty-five years of India. He
would be home as soon as his letter.

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Anne. "I

ANNE SEVERN 'AND THE FIBLDINGS 127

diall stay as long as you want me. If father wants
aae he must come down here."
In another three days he had come.

IV

He had grey hair now and his face was a little lined, a
little faded, but he was slender and handsome still —
handsomer, more distinguished, Adeline thought, than
ever.

Again he sat out with her on the terrace when the
October days were warm; he walked with her up and
down the lawn and on the flagged paths of the flower
garden. Again he followed her from the drawing-room
to the library where Colin was, and back again. He
waited, ready for her.

Again Adeline smiled her self-satisfied, self-conscious
smile. She had the look of a young girl, moving in
perfect happiness. She was perpetually aware of him.

One night CoUn called out to Anne that he couldn't
sleep. People were walking about outside imder his
window. Anne looked out. In the full moonlight she
saw Adeline and her father walking together on the
terrace. Adeline was wrapped in a long cloak; she
held his arm and they leaned toward each other as they
walked. His man's voice sounded tender and low.

Anne called to them. "I say, darlings, would you
mind awfully going somewhere else? Colin can't sleep
with you prowling about there."

Adeline's voice came up to them with a little laughing
quiver.

"All right, ducky; we're going in."

128 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

V

It was the end of October; John Severn had gone
back to London. He had taken a house m Montpdier
Square and was furnishing it.

One morning Adeline came down smiling, more self-
conscious than ever.

"Anne," she said, "do you think you could look
after Colin if I went up to Evelyn's for a week or two?"

Evelyn was Adeline's sister. She lived in London.

"Of course I can."

"You aren't afraid of being alone with him?"

"Afraid? Of Col-Col? What do you take me for?"

"Well " Adeline meditated. " It isn't as if Mrs.

Benning wasn't here."

Mrs. Benning was the housekeeper.

"That'll make it all right and proper. The fact is,
I must have a rest and change before the winter. I
hardly ever get away, as you know. And Evelyn would
like to have me. I think I must go."

"Of course you must go," Anne said.

And Adeline went.

At the end of the first week she wrote:

12 Eaton Square.

November Sd, 1916.

Darling Anne, — Will you be very much surprised
to hear that your father and I are going to be married?
You mayn't know it, but he has loved me all his life.
We were to have married once (you knew that)y and I
jilted him. But he has never changed. He has been
so faithful and forgiving, and has waited for me so
patiently — twenty-seven years, Anne — that I hadn't

ANNE SEVERN AND THE BIELDINGS 129

bhe heart to refuse him. I feel that I must m^ke up
to him for all the pain I've given him.

We want you to come up for the wedding on the
10th. It will be very quiet. No bridesmaids. No
party. We think it best not to have it at Wyck, on
Colin's account. So I shall just be married from Eve-
lyn's house.

Give us your blessing, there's a dear.

Your loving

Adeline Fielding.

Anne's eyes filled with tears. At last she saw Adeline
Fieldmg completely, as she was, without any f ascma-
tion. She thought: '^She'smarrying to get away from
Colin. She's left him to me to look after. How could
she leave him? How could she?"

Anne didn't go up for the wedding. She told Adeline
it wasn't much use asking her When she knew that
Colin couldn't be left.

"Or, if you like, that / can't leave him."

Her father wrote back:

Your Aunt Adeline thinks you reproach her for
Leaving Colin. I told her you were too intelligent to
do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's the best
thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of
Looking after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be
looked after herself, and you ought to be grateful to
me for relieving you of the job.

But I don't lUce your being alone down there with
Colin. If he isn't better we must send him to a nursing
home.

Are you wondering whether we're going to be happy?

130 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

We shall be so long as I let her have her own way;
which is what I mean to do.

Your very affectionate father,

John Severn.

And Anne answered :

Deabest Daddy, — I shouldn't dream of reproaching
Amit AdeUne any more than I should rep roach a pussy-
cat for catching bu-ds. ^

Look after her as much as you please — / shall look
after Colin. Whether you like it or not, darling, you
can't stop me. And I won't let Colin go to a nursing
home. It would be the worst possible place for him.
Ask Eliot. Besides, he is better.

I'm ever so glad you're going to be happy.

Your loving

Anne.

y

VIII
ANNE AND COLIN

AtTTUBiN bad passed. Colin's couch was drawn up
before the fire m the drawmg-room. Anne sat with him
there.

He was better. He could listen for half an hour at a
time when Anne read to him — poems, short stories,
things that were ended before Colin tired of them. He
ate and drank hungrily and his body began to get back
its strength.

At noon, when the winter sun shone, he walked, first
up and down the terrace, then round and round the
garden, then to the beech trees at the top of the field,
and then down the hill to the Manor Farm. On mild
days she drove him about the country in the dog-cart.
She had tried motoring but had had to give it up
because Colin was frightened at the hooting, grinding
and jarrmg of the car.

As winter went on Anne found that Colin was no
worse in cold or wet weather. He couldn't stand the
noise and rush of the wind, but his strange malady took
no count of rain or snow. He shivered in the clear,
still frost, but it braced him all the same. Driving or
strolling, she kept him half the day in the open air.

She saw that he liked best the places they had gone
to when they were children — the Manor Farm fields,

131

132 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS -

High Slaughter, and Hayes Mill. They were always
going to the places where they had done things together.
When Colia talked sanely he was back in those times.
He was safe there. There, if anywhere, he could find
his real self and be well.

She had the feeling that Colin's future lay somewhere
through his past. If only she could get him back there,
so that he could be what he had been. There mus^ be
some way of joining up that time to this, if only she
could find a bridge, a link. She didn't know that she
was the way, she was the link binding his past to his
present, bound up with his youth, his happiness, his
innocence, with the years before Queenie and the War.

She didn't know what Queenie had done to him. She
didn't know that the war had only finished what
Queenie had begun. That was Colin's secret, the hid-
den source of his fear.

But he was safe with Anne because they were not in
love with each other. She left his senses at rest, and
her affection never called for any emotional response.
She took him away from his fear; she kept him back^^in
his childhood, in his boyhood, in the years before
Queenie, with a continual, "Do you remember?"

''Do you remember the walk to High Slaughter?".

"Do you remember the booby-trap we set for poor
Pinkney?"

That was dangerous, for poor Pinkney was at the
War.

"Do you remember Benjy?"

"Yes, rather."

But Benjy was dangerous, too; for Jerrold had given
him to her. She could feel Colin shying.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE BIELDINGS 133

''He had a butterfly smut/' he said. "Hadn't he?
• . . Do you remember how I used to come and see
you at Cheltenham?"

"And Grannie and Aunt Emily, and how you used
to play on their piano. And how Grannie jmnped
when you came down crash on those chords in the
Waldstein."

"Do you mean the presto? ''

"Yes. The last movement.''

" No wonder she jimiped. I should jimip now." He
turned his mournful face to her. "Anne — I shall never
be able to play again."

There was danger everywhere. In the end all ways
led back to Colin's malady.

"Oh yes, you will when you're quite strong."

"I shall never be stronger."

"You will. You're stronger already."

She knew he was stronger. He could sleep three
hours on end now and he had left off screaming.

And still the doors were left open between their
rooms at night. He was still afraid to sleep alone; ha
liked to know that she was there, close to him.

Instead of the dreams, instead of the sudden rush-
ing, crashing horror, he was haunted by a nameless
dread. Dread of something he didn't know, something
that waited for him, something he couldn't face. Some-
thing that hung over him at night, that was there with
him in the morning, that came between him and the
light of the sun.

Anne kept it aw'ay. Anne came between it and him.
He was imhappy and frightened when Anne was not
there.

134 ANNE SEVERN AND THE JIELDINGS

It was always, "You're not going, Anne?"

"Yes. But I'm coming back."

"How soon?"

And she would say, "An hour;" or, "Half an hour,"
or, "Ten minutes."

"Don't be longer."

"No."

And then: "I don't know how it is, Anne. But
everything seems all right when you're there, and all
wrong when you're not.^

}}

u

The Manor Farm house stands in the hamlet of
Upper Speed. It has the grey church and churchyard
beside it and looks across the deep road towards
Sutton's farm.

The beautiful Jacobean house, the chtu*ch and church-
yard, Sutton's farm and the rectory, the four cotti^es
and the Mill, the river and its bridge, lie close together
in the small flat of the valley. Green pastures slope up
the hill behind them to the north; pink-hrown arable
lands, ploughed and harrowed, are flung off to either
side, east and west.

Northwards the valley is a slender slip of green bor-
dering the slender river. Southwards, below the bridge,
the water meadows widen out past Sutton's farm. From
the front windows of the Manor Farm house you see
them, green between the brown trunks of the elms on
the road bank. From the back you look out across
orchard and pasture to the black, still water and yellow
osier beds above the Mill. Beyond the water a double
line of beeches, bare delicate branches, rounded head

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 136

after rounded head, climbs a hillock in a steep curve,
to part and meet again in a thick ring at the top.

The house front stretches along a sloping grass plot,
the inunense porch built out like a wmg with one baU-
topped gable above it, a smaller gable in the roof behind.
On either side two rows of wide black windows, heavy
browed, with thick stone mullions.

Barker, Jerrold Fielding's agent, used to live there;
but before the spring of nineteen sixteen Barker had
joined up, Wyck Manor had been turned into a home
for convalescent soldiers, and Anne was Uving with
Colin at the Manor Farm.

Half of her Ilf ord land had been taken by the gov-
ernment; and she had let the rest together with
the house and orchard. Instead of her own estate
she had the Manor to look after now. It had been im-
possible in war-time to fill Barker's place, and Anne
had become Jerrold's agent. She had begun with a
vague promise to give a look round now and then ; but
when the spring came she found herself doing Barker's
work, keepmg the farm accounts, ordering fertiUzers,
calculating so many hundredweights of superphosphate
of lime, or sulphate of anmionia, or muriate of potash
to the acre; riding about on Barker's horse, looking
after the ploughing; ploddmg through the furrows of
the hill slopes to see how the new drillers were working;
going the round of the sheep-pens to keep count of
the sick ewes and lambs; carrying the motherless lambs
in her arms from the fold to the warm kitchen.

She went through February rain and snow, through
March wind and sleet, and through the mists of the
low meadows; her feet were loaded with earth from the

136 ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS

ploughed fields; her nostrils filled with the cold, rich
smell of the wet earth; the rank, sharp smell of swedes,
the dry, pimgent smell of straw and hay; the thick,
oily, woolly smell of the folds, the warm, half-sweet,
half sour smell of the cattle sheds, of champed fodder,
of milky cow's breath; the smell of hot litter and dimg.

At five and twenty she had reached the last clear
decision of her beauty. Dressed in riding coat and
breeches, her body showed more slender and more
robust than ever. Rain, sim and wind were cosmetics
to her firm, smooth skin. Her eyes were bright dark,
washed with the clean air.

On her Essex farm and afterwards at the War she
had learned how to handle men. Sulky Curtis, who
grumbled imder Barker's rule, surrendered to Anne
without a scowl. When Anne came ridmg over the
Seven Acre field, lazy Ballinger pulled himself together
and ploughed through the two last furrows that he
would have left for next day in Barker's time. Even
for Ballinger and Curtis she had smiles that atoned
for her little air of imperious commanc^.

And Colin followed her about the farmyard and up
the fields till he tired and turned back. She would see
him standing by the gate she had passed through,
looking after her with the mournful look he used to
have when he was a Uttle boy and they left him behind.

He would stand looking till Anne's figure, black on
her black horse, stood up against the skyline from the
curve of the roimd-topped hill. It dipped; it dipped
and disappeared and Colin would go slowly home.

At the first sound of her horse's hoofs in the yard he
came out to meet her.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 137

m

One day he said to her, " Jerrold'U be jolly pleased
with what you've done when he comes home."

And then, "If he ever can be pleased with anything
again."

It was the first time he had said Jerrold's name.

"That's what's been bothering me," he went on.
"I can't think how Jerrold's going to get over it. You
remember what he was like when Father died?"

"Yes." She remembered.

"Well — what's the War going to do to him? Look
what it's done to me. He minds things so much more
than I do."

"It doesn't tske everybody the same way, Colin."

"I don't suppose Jerrold'U get shell-shock. But he
might get something worse. Something that'll hurt
him more. He must mind so awfully."

"You may be sure he won't mind anjrthing that
could happen to himself."

"Of course he won't. But the things that'll happen
to other people. Seeing the other chaps knocked about
and kiUed."

" He minds most the things that happen to the peo-
ple he cares about. To you and Eliot. They're the
sort of things he can't face. He'd pretend they couldn't
happen. But the war's so big that he can't say it isn't
happening; he's got to stand up to it. And the things
you stand up to don't hurt you. I feel certain he'll
come through all right."

That was the turning point in Colin's malady. She
thought: "If he can talk about Jerrold he's getting
well."

138 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

The next day a letter came to her from Jeirold. He
wrote: ''I wish to goodness I could get leave. I don't
want it all the time. I'm quite prepared to stick this
beastly job for any reasonable period; but a whole year
without leave, it's a bit thick. . . "

"About Colin. Didn't I tell you he'd be all right?
And it's all you, Anne. You've made him; you needn't
pretend you haven't. I want most awfully to see you
again. There are all sorts of things I'd like to say to
you, but I can't write 'em."

She thought: "He's got over it at last, then. He
won't be afraid of me any more."

Somehow, since the war she had felt that Jerrold
would come back to her. It was as if always^ de^
down and in secret, she had known that he belonged
to her and that she belonged to him as no other person
could; that whatever happened and however long a
time he kept away from her he would come back at
some time, m some way. She couldn't distinguish be-
tween Jerrold and her sense of Jerrold; and as nothing
could separate her from the sense of him, nothing could
separate her from Jerrold himself. He had part in the
profound and secret life of her blood and nerves and
brain.

IX
JERROLD

At last, in March, nineteen-sixteen, Jerrold had got
leave.

Anne was right; Jerrold had come through because
he had had to stand up to the War and face it. He
couldn't turn away. It was too stupendous a fact to
be ignored or denied or m any way escaped from. And
as he had to "take" it, he took it laughing. Once in
the thick of it, Jerrold was sustained by his cheerful
obstinacy, his inability to see the things he didn't want
to see. He admitted that there was a war, the most
appalling war, if you liked, that had ever been; but
he refused, all the time, to believe that the Allies would
lose it ; he refused from moment to moment to believe
that they could be beaten in any single action; he
denied the possibility of disaster to his own men. Dis-
aster to himself — possibly; probably, in theory; but
not in practice. Not when he turned back in the rain
of the enemy's fire to find his captain who had dropped
wounded among the dead, when he swung him over
his shoulder and staggered to the nearest stretcher. He
knew he would get through. It was inconceivable to
Jerrold that he should not get through. Even in his
fifth engagement, when his men broke and gave back
in front of the German parapet, and he advanced alone,

139

140 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

shouting to them to come on^ it was inconceivable that
they should not come on. And when they saw him,
running forward by himself, they gathered again and
ran after him and the trench was taken in a mad rush.

Jerrold got his captaincy and two weeks' leave to-
gether. He had meant to spend three days in London
with his mother, three days in Yorkshire with the Dur-
hams, and the rest of his time at Upper Speed with
Anne and Colin. He was not quite sure whether he
wanted to go to the Durhams. More than anything he
wanted to see Anne again.

His last unbearable memory of her was wiped out by
five years of India and a year of war. He remem-
bered the child Anne who played with him, the girl
Anne who went about with him, and the girl woman
he had found in her room at dawn. He tried to join
on to her the image of the Anne that Eliot wrote to
him about, who had gone out to the war and come back
from it to look after Colin. He was in love with this
image of her and ready to be in love again with the
real Anne. He would go back now and find her and
make her care for him.

There had been a time, after his father's death, when
he had tried to make himself think that Anne had
never cared for him, because he didn't want to think
she cared. Now that he did want it he wasn't sure.

Not so sure as he was about little Maisie Durham. He
knew Maisie cared. That was why she had gone out
to India. It was also why she had been sent back
again. He was afraid it might be why the Durhams
had asked him to stay with them as soon as he had
leave. If that was so, he wasn't sure whether he ought

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 141

to stay with them, seeing that he didn't care for Maisie.
But since they had asked him, well, he could only sup-
pose that the Durhams knew what they were about.
Perhaps Maisie had got over it. The little thing had
lots of sense.

It hadn't been his fault in the beginnii^, Maisie's
caring. Afterwards, perhaps, in India, when he had let
himself see more of her than he would have done if
he had known she cared; but that, again, was hardly
his fault since he didn't know. You don't see these
things unless you're on the lookout for them, and
you're not on the lookout unless you're a conceited ass.
Then when he did see it, when he couldn't help seeing,
after other people had seen and made him see, it had
been too late.

But this was five years ago, and of course Maisie had
got over it. There would be somebody else now. Per-
haps he would go down to Yorkshire. Perhaps he
wouldn't.

At this point Jerrold realised that it depended on
Anne.

But before he saw Anne he would have to see his
mother. | And before he saw his mother his mother had
seen Anne and Colin.

u

And while Anne in Gloucestershire was answering
Jerrold's letter, Jerrold sat in the drawing-room of the
house in Montpelier Square and talked to his mother.
They talked about Colin and Anne.
^ '^ What's Colin's wife doing?" he said.

It

142 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

*

"Queenie? She's driving a field ambulance car in
Belgium."

''Why isn't she lookmg after Colm?"

''That isn't in Queenie's line. Besides "

"Besides what?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I don't suppose she'll live
with CoUn after "

" After ti?/Mrf?"

"Well, after CoUn's Uving with Anne."

Jerrold stiffened. He felt the blood rushing to his
heart, . betraying him. His face was God only knew
what awful colour.

"You don't mean to say they "

"I don't mean to say I blame them, poor darlings.
What were they to do?"

"But" (he almost stammered it) "you don't know —
you can't know — it doesn't follow."

"Well, of course, my dear, they haven't told me.
You don't shout these things from the house-tops. But
what is one to think? There they are; there they've
been for the last five months, living together at the
Farm," absolutely alone. Anne won't leave him. She
won't have anybody there, tf you tell her it's not
proper she laughs in your face. And CoUn swears he
won't go back to Queenie. What is one to think?"

Jerrold covered his face with his hands. He didn't
know.

His mother went on in a voice of perfect sweetness.
Don't imagine I think a bit the worse of Anne. She's
been simply splendid. I never saw anything like her
devotion. She's brought CoUn round out of the most
appalling state. We've no business to complain of a

((
It
It

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 143'

situation we're all benefitting by. Some people can do
these things and you forgive them. Whatever Anne
does or doesn't do she'll always be a perfect darUng.
As for Queenie, I don't consider her for a minute.
She's been simply asking for it."

He wondered whether it were really true. It didn't
follow that Anne and Cohn were lovers because his
mother feaid so ; even supposing that she really thought it.

"You don't go telling everybody, I hope?" he said.

"My dear Jerrold, what do you think I'm made of?
I haven't even told Anne's father. I've only told you
because I thought you ought to know."
I see; you want to put me off Anne?"
I don't want to. But it would, wouldn't it?"
Oh Lord, yes, if it was true. Perhaps it isn't."

"Jerry dear, it may be awfully immoral of me, but
for Colin's sake I can't help hoping that it is. I did
so want Anne to marry Colin — really he's only right
when he's with her — and if Queenie divorces him I
suppose she will."

"But, mother, you are going ahead. You may be
quite wrong."

"I may. You can only suppose "

" How on earth am I to know? I can't ask them."

"No, you can't ask them*."

Of course he couldn't. He couldn't go to Colin and
say, "Are you Anne's lover?" He couldn't go to Aime
and say, "Are you Colin's mistress?"

"If they wanted us to know," said Adeline, "they'd
have told us. There you are."

"Supposing it isn't true, do you imagine he cares
for her?"

144 ANNE SEVERN AI^ THE FIELDINGS

"Yes, Jerrold. I'm quite, quite sure of that. I was
down there last week and saw them. He can't bear
her out of his sight one minute. He couldn't not care."

"And Anne?"

"Oh, well, Anne isn't going to give herself away.
But I'm certain . . . Would she stick down there, with
everybody watchmg them and thinking things and
talking, if she didn't care so much that nothing mat-
ters?"

"But would she — would she "

The best of his mother was that in these matters her
mind jumped to meet yours halfway. You hadn't got
to put things into words.

"My dear, if you think she wouldn't, supposing she
cared enough, you don't know Anne."

"I shall go down," he said, "and see her."

"If you do, for goodness' sake be careful. Even
supposing there's nothing in it, you mustn't let Colin
see you think there is. He'd feel then that he ought
to leave her for fear of compromising her. And if he
leaves her he'll be as bad as ever again. And I can't
manage him. Nobody can manage him but Anne.
That's how they've tied our hands. We can't say
anything."

"I see."

"After all, Jerrold, it's very simple. If they're inno-
cent we must leave them in their innocence. And if
they're not "

"If they're not?"

"Well, we must leave them in i/uif."

Jerrold laughed. But he was not in the least amused.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 146

• ••

m

He went down to Wyck the next day; he couldn't
wait till the day after.

Not that he had the smallest hope of Anne now.
Even if his mother's suspicion were unfounded, she had
made it sufficiently clear to him that Anne was neces-
sary to Colin; and, that being so, the chances were
that Colin cared for her. In these matters his mother
was not such a fool as to be utterly mistaken. On
every account, therefore, he must be prepared to give
Anne up. He couldn't take her away from Colin, and
he wouldn't if he could. It was his own fault. What
was done was done six years ago. He should have
loved Anne then.

Going down in the train he thought of her, a little
girl with short black hair, holdmg a black-and-white
rabbit against her breast, a little girl with a sweet
mouth ready for kisses, wl^o hung herself round his
neck with sudden, loving a^ps. A big girl with long
black hair tied in an immensl^black bow, a girl too big
for kisses. A girl sitting in he^ room between her white
bed and the window with a little black cat in her arms.
Her platted hair lay in a thick black rope down her
back. He remembered how he had kissed her; he
remembered the shding of her sweet face against his,'
the pressure of her darling head against his shoulder,
the salt taste of her tears. It was inconceivable that
he had not loved Anne then. Why hadn't he? Why
had he let his infernal cowardice stop him? Eliot had
loved her.

Then he remembered Colin. Little Col-Col running
after them down the field, calling to them to take him

146 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

with them; Colm's hands playmg; Colm's voice sing-
ing Lard Rendal. He tried to think of Queenie, the
woman Colin had married. He had no image of hen
He could see nothing but Colin and Anne.

She was there alone at the station to meet him. She
came towards him along the platform. Their eyes
looked for each other. Something choked his voice
back. She spoke first.

"Jerrold "

"Anne." A strange, thick voice deep down in his
throat.

Their hands clasped one into the other, close and
strong.

"Colin wanted to come, but I wouldn't let him. It
would have been too much for him. He might have
cried or something. . . . You mustn't mind if he cries
when he sees you. He isn't quite right yet."

"No, but he's better."

"Ever so much better. He can do things on the
farm now. He looks after the lambs and the chickens
and the pigs. It's good for him to have something to
do."

Jerrold agreed that it was good.

They had reached the Manor Farm now.

"Don't take any notice if he cries," she said,

Colin waited for him in the hall of the house. He
was trying hard to control himself, but when he saw
Jerrold coming up the path he broke down in a brief
convulsive crying that stopped suddenly at the touch
of Jerrold's hand.

Anne left them together.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 147

iv

"Don't go, Anne."

Colin called her back when she would have left them
again after dinner.

"Don't you want Jerrold to yourself?" she said.

"We don't want you to go, do we, Jerrold?"

"Rather not."

Jerrold found himself looking at them all the time.
He had tried to persuade himself that what his mother
had told him was not true. But he wasn't sure. Look
SB he would, he was not sure.

If only his mother hadn't told him, he might have
gone on behoving in what she had caUed theur hmo-
cence. But she had shown him what to look for, and
for the life of him he couldn't help seeing it at every
turn: in Anne's face, in the way she looked at Colin,
the way she spoke to him; m her kindness to hun, her
tender, quiet absorption. In the way CoUn's face
turned after her as she came and went; in his restless-
ness when she was not there; in the peace, the sudden
smoothmg of his vexed brows, when havmg gone she
came back again.

Supposing it were true that they

He couldn't bear it to be true; his mind struggled
against the truth of it, but if it were true he didn't
blame them. So far from being imtrue or even im-
probable, it seemed to Jerrold the most likely thing in
the world to have happened. It had happened to so
many people since the war that he couldn't deny its
likelihood. There was only one thing that could have
made it impossible — if Anne had cared for him. And
what reason had he to suppose she cared? After six

148 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

years? After he had told her he was trying to get
away from her? He had got away; and he saw a sort of
dreadful justice in the event that made it useless for
him to come back. If anybody was to blame it was
himself. Himself and QueeniO; that horrible girl Colin
had married.

When he asked himself whether it was the sort of
thing that Anne would be likely to do he thought:
Why not, if she loved him, if she wanted to make him
happy? How could he tell what Anne would or would
not do? She had said long ago that he couldn't, that
she might do anything.

They spent the evening talking, by fits and starts,
with long silences in between. They talked about the
things that happened before the war, before Colin's
marriage, the things they had done together. They
talked about the farm and Anne's work, about Barker
and Curtis and Ballinger, about Mrs. Sutton who
watched them from her house across the road.

Mrs. Sutton had once been Colin's nurse up at the
Manor: she had married old Sutton after his*fi]^ wife's
death; old Sutton who wouldn't die and let Anne have
his farm. And now she watched them as if she were
afraid of what they might do next.

"Poor old Nanna," Jerrold said.

'^ Goodness knows what she thinks of us," said Anne.

"It doesn't matter what she thinks," said Colin.

And they laughed; they laughed; and Jerrold was
not quite sure, yet.

But before the night was over he thought he was.

They had given him the little room in the gable. It
led out of Colin's room. And there on the chinmey-

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 149

piece he saw an old photograph of himself at the age
of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given
it to Anne on the last day of the midsummer hoUdays,
nineteen hundred. Also he found a pair of Anne's
slippers imder the bed, and, caught in a crack of the
dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading
out of Colin's was Anne's room.

And Colin called out to him, "Do you mind leaving
the door open, Jerry? I can't sleep if it's shut."

It was Jerrold's second day. He and Anne climbed
the steep beech walk to the top of the hillock and sat
there imder the trees. Up the fields on the opposite
rise they could see the grey walls and gables of the
Manor, and beside it their other beech ring at the top
of the last field.

They were silent for a while. He was intensely
aware of her as she turned her head round, slowly, to
look at him, straight and full.

And the sense of his nearness came over her, soaking
in deeper, swamping her brain. Her wide open eyes
darkened; her breathing came m tight, short jerks; her
nerves quivered. She wondered whether he could feel
their quivering, whether he could hear her jerking
breath, whether he could see something queer about her
eyes. But she had to look at him, not shyly, furtively,
but straight and full, taking him in.

He was changed. The war had changed him. His
face looked harder, the mouth closer set imder the
mark of the little clipped fawn-brown moustache. His
eyes that used to flash their blue so gayly, to rest so

150 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

lightly, were fixed now, dark and heavy witiii memory.
They had seen too much. They would never lose that
dark memory of the things they had seen. She won-
dered, was Colin right? Had the war done worse things
to Jerrold than it had done to him? He would never
tdl her.

"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "did you have a good
time in India?"

"I suppose so. I dare say I thought I had.''

"And you hadn't?"

"Well, I can't conceive how I could have had."

"You mean it seems so long ago."

"No, I don't mean that."

"You've forgotten."

"I don't mean that, either."

Silence.

" Look here, Anne, I want to know about Colin. Has
he been very bad?"

"Yes, he has."

"How bad?"

"So bad that sometimes I was glad you weren't
there to see him. You remember when he was a kid,
how frightened he used to be at night. Well, he's been
like that all the time. He's like that now, only he's
a bit better. He doesn't scream now. . . . All the
time he kept on worrying about you. He only told me
that the other day. He seemed to think the war must
have done something more frightful to you than it had
done to him; he said, because you'd mind it more. I
told him it wasn't the sort of thing you'd mind most."

"It isn't the sort of thing it's any good minding.
I don't suppose I minded more than the other chaps.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 151

If anything had happened to you, or him, or Eliot, I'd
have minded that."

"I know. That's what I told him. I knew you'd
come through."

''Eliot was dead right about Colin. He knew he
wouldn't. He ought never to have gone out."

''He wanted so awfully to go. But Eliot could have
stopped him if it hadn't been for Queenie. She hunted
and hounded him out. She told him he was funking.
Fancy CoUn funking!"
What's Queenie hke?"

She's like that. She never funks herself, but she
wants to make out that everybody else does."

"Do you Uke Queenie?"

"No. I hate her. I don't mind her hounding him
out so much since she went herself; I do mind her
leaving him. Do you know, she's never even tried to
come and see him."

"Good God! what a beast the woman must be.
What on earth made him marry her?"

"He was frightfully in love. An awful sort of love
that wore him out and made him wretched. And now
he's afraid for his Ufe of her. I believe he's afraid of
the war ending because then she'll come back."

"And if she does come back?"

"She may try and take Colin away from me. But
she shan't. She can't take him if he doesn't want to
go. She left him to me to look after and I mean to
stick to him. I won't have him frightened and made
aU ill again just when I've got hun well."

"I'm afraid you've had a very hard time."

"Not so hard as you think."

152 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

She smiled a mysterious, quiet smile, as if she con-
templated some happy secret. He thought he knew it,
Amie's secret.

" Do you think it^s fimny of me to be living here with
Colin?"

He laughed.

''I suppose it's all right.^^ You always had pluck
enough for anything.''

"It doesn't take pluck to stick to Colin."

" Moral pluck."

"No. Not even moral."

"You were always fond of him, weren't you?"

That was about as far as he dare go.

She smiled her strange smile again.

"Yes. I was always fond of him. . . . You see, he
wants me more than anybody else ever did or ever
will."

"I'm not so sure about that. But he always did
get what he wanted."

"Oh, does he! How about Queenie?"

"Even Queenie. I suppose he wanted her at the time."

"He doesn't want her now. Poor Colin."

"You mustn't ask me to pity him."

"Ask you? He'd hate you to pity him. I'd hate
you to pity me." .

"I shouldn't dream of pitying you, finy more than
I should dream of criticising you."

"Oh, you may criticise as much as you like."

"No. Whatever you did it would make no differ-
ence. I should know it was right because you did it."

"It wouldn't be. I do heaps of wrong things, but
this is right."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 1S3

"I'm sure it is."
"Here's Colin," she said.

He had come out to look for them. He couldn't
bear to be alone.

vi

Jerrold had gone to Sut^n's Farm to say good-bye
to their old nurse, Nanny Sutton.

Nanny talked about the war, about the young men
who had gone from Wyck and would not come back,
about the marvel of Sutton's living on through it all,
and he so old and feeble. She talked about Colin and
Anne.

"Oh, Master Jerrold," she said, "I do think it's a
pity she should be livin' all alone with Mr. Colin like
this 'ere."

"They're all right, Nanny. You needn't worry."

"Well — well. Miss Anne was always one to go her
own way and make it seem the right way."^^^

"You may be perfectly sure it is the right way."

"I'm not sayin' as 'tisn't. And I dimnow what
Master Colin 'd a done without her. But it do make
people talk. There's a deal of strange things said in
the place."

"Don't listen to them."

"Eh dear, rtl not 'ear a word. When anybody says
anything to nie I tell 'em straight they'd oughter be
ashamed of themselves, back-bitin' and slanderin'."

"That's right, Nanny, you give it them in the neck."

"If it 'd only end in talk, but there's been harm
done to the innocent. There's Mr. and Mrs. Kimber,
Kimber, 'e's my 'usband's cousin." Nanny paused.

164 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEBLDINGS

"What about him?''

"Well, 'tis this way. They're doin' for Miss Anne,
livin' in the house with her. Eimber, 'e sees to the gar-
den and Mrs. Eimber she cooks and that. And Eimber
— that's my 'usband's cousin — 'e was gardener at the
vicarage. And now 'e's lost his job along of Master
Colin and Miss Anne."

"What do you mean?"

" Well, sir, 'tis the vicar. 'E says they 'adn't oughter
be Uvin' in the house with Miss Anne, because of the
talk there's been. So 'e says Eimber must choose be-
tween 'em. And Eimber, 'e says 'e'd have minded
what parson said if it had a bin a church matter or
such like, but parson or no parson, 'e says 'e's his own
master an' 'e won't have no interferin' with him and
his missus. So he's lost his job."

"Poor old Eimber. What a beastly shame."

"Eh, 'tis a shame to be sure."

"Never mind; I can give him a bigger job at the
Manor."

"Oh, Master Jerrold, if you would, it 'd be a kind-
ness, I'm sure. And Eimber 'e deserves it, the way
they've stuck to Miss Anne."

"He does indeed. It's pretty decent of them. I'll
see about that before I go."

"Thank you, sir. Sutton and me thought maybe
you'd do something for him, else I shouldn't have
spoken. And if there's anything I can do for Miss
Anne I'll do it. I've always looked on her as one of
you. But 'tis a pity, all the same."

"You mustn't say that, Nanny. I tell you it's all
perfectly right."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDING8 156

"Well, I shall never say as 'tisn't. No, nor think it.
You can trust me for that. Master Jerrold."

Bethought: Poor old Nanny. She Ues like a brick.

vu

He said to himself that he would never know the
truth about Anne and Colin. If he went to them and
asked them he would be no nearer knowing. They
would have to lie to him to save each other. In any
case, his mother had made it clear to him that as long
as Anne had to look after Colin he couldn't ask them.
If they were innocent their innocence must be left un-
disturbed. If they were not innocent, well — he had
lost the right to know it. Besides, he was sure, as sure
as if they had told him.

He knew how it would be. Colin's wife would come
home and she would divorce Colin and he would marry
Anne. So far as Jerrold could see, that was his brother's
only chance of happiness and sanity.

As for himself, there was nothing he could do now
but clear out and leave them.

And, as he had no desire to go back to his mother
and hear about Anne and Colin all over again, he went
down to the Durhams' in Yorkshire for the rest of his
leave.

He hadn't been there five days before he and Maisie
were engaged; and before the two weeks were up he
had married her.

X

ELIOT

EuoT stood in the porch of the Manor Farm house.
There was nobody there to greet him. Behind him on
the oak table in the hall the wire he had sent lay
miopened.

It was midday in June.

All romid the place the air was sweet with the smell
of the mown hay, and from the Broad Pasture there
came the rattle and throb of the mowing-machines.

Eliot went down the road and through the gate into
the hay-field. Colin and Anne were there. Anne at the
top of the field drove the mower, mounted up on the
shell-shaped iron seat, white against the blue sky. Colin
at the bottom, slender and tall above the big revolving
wheel, drove the rake. The tedding machine, driven
by a farm hand, went between. Its iron-toothed rack
caught the new-mown hay, tossed it and scattered it
on the field. Beside the long glistening swaths the cut
edge of the hay stood up clean and solid as a wall.
Above it the raised plane of the grass-tops, brushed by
the wind, quivered and swayed, whitish green, greenish
white, in a long shimmering undulation.

Eliot went on to meet Anne and Colin as they turned
and came up the field again.

156

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 157

When they saw him they jumped down and came
running.

"Eliot, you never told us."

"I wired at nine this mommg."

*' There's nobody in the house and weVe not been in
since breakfast at seven," Colin said.

"It's twelve now. Time you knocked off for lunch,
isn't it?"

"Are you all right, EUot?" said Anne.

"Rather."

He gave a long look at them, at their sun-burnt
faces, at their clean, slender grace, Colin in his cricket-
ing flannels, and Anne in her land-girl's white-linen
coat, knickerbockers, and grey wideawake.

"Colin doesn't look as if there was much the matter
with him. He might have been farming all his life."

"So I have,'' said Colin; "considering that I haven't
lived till now."

And they went back together towards the house.

u

Colin's and Anne's work was done for the day. The
hay in the Broad Pasture was mown and dried. To-
morrow it would be heaped into cocks and carried to
the stackyard.

It was the evening of Eliot's first day. He and Anne
sat out under the apple trees in the orchard.

"What on earth have you done to Colin?" he said.
"I expected to find him a perfect wreck."

"He was pretty bad three months ago. But it's
good for him being down here in the place he used to

158 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

be happy in. He knows he's safe here. It's good for

him doing jobs about the farm, too."
''I imagine it's good for him being with you."
"Oh, well, he knows he's safe with me."
"Very safe. He owes it to you that he's sane now.

You must have been astonishingly wise with him."
"It didn't take much wisdom. Not more than it

used to take when he was a little frightened Md. That's

all he was when he came back from the war, EUot."
"The point is that you haven't treated him like a

kid. You've made a man of him again. You've given

hinn a man's life and a man's work."

"That's what I want to do. When he's trained he

can look after Jerrold's land. You know poor Barker

died last month of septic pneumonia. The camp was

fuU of it."
"I know."

"What do you think of my training Colin?"
" It's all right for him, Anne. But how About you? "
" Me? Oh, I'm all right. You needn't worry about me."
" I do worry about you. And your father's worrying."
" Dear old Daddy. It is silly of him. As if anything

mattered but Colin."
" You matter. You see, your father doesn't like your

being here alone with him. He's afraid of what people

may think."

"I'm not. I don't care what people think. They've

no bua'ness to."
"No; but they will, and they do. . . . You know

what I mean, Anne, don't you?"

"I suppose you mean they think I'm Colin's mis-
tress. Is that it?"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS 150

''I'm afraid it is. They can't think anything else.
It's beastly of them, I know, but this is a beastly
world; dear, and it doesn't do to go on behaving as if
it wasn't."

"I don't care. If people are beastly it's their look-
out, not mine. The beastlier they are the less I care."

"I don't suppose you care if the vicar's wife won't
fall or if Lady Corbett and the Hawtreys cut you. But
that's why."

"Is it? I never thought about it. I'm too busy to
go and see them and I supposed they were too busy
to come and see me. I certainly don't care."

"If it was people you cared about?"

"Nobody I care about would think things like that
of me."

"Anne dear, I'm not so sure."
Then it shows how much they care about m6."
But it's because they care."
I can't help it. They may care, but they don't
know. They can't know anything about me if they
think that."

"And you honestly don't mind?"

"I mind what you think. But you don't think it,
EUot, doyou?"

"I? Good Lord no! Do you mind what mother
thinks?"

"Yes, I mind. But it doesn't matter very much."

"It would matter if Jerrold thought it."

"Oh EUot — does he?"

"I don't suppose he thinks precisely that. But I'm
pretty sure he thought you and Colin cared for each
other."

160: ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINQS

"What makes you think so?"

"His marrying Maisie Uke that."

"Why shouldn't he many her?"

"Because it's you he cares about."

Eliot's voice was quiet and heavy. She knew that
what he said was true. That quiet, heavy voice was the
voice of her own innermost conviction. Yet under the
shock of it she sat silent, not looking at him, looking
with wide, fixed eyes at the pattern the apple boughs
made on the sky.

"How do you know?" she said, presently.

"Because of the way he talked to mother before he
came to see you here. She says he was frightfully upset
when she told him about you and Colin."

"She told him thair

"Apparently."

"What did she do it for, EUot?"

"What does mother do anything for? I imagine she
wanted to put Jerrold oflf so that you could stick on
with CoUn. You've taken him oflf her hands and she
wants him kept oflf."

"So she told him I was Colin's mistress."

"Mind you, she doesn't think a bit the worse of you
for that. She admires you for it no end."

"Do you suppose I care what she thinks? It's her
making Jerrold think it. . . . Eliot, how could she? "

"She could, because she only sees things as they
aflfect herself."

"Do you believe she really thinks it?"

"She's made herself think it because she wanted to."

"But why — why should she want to?"

" I've told you why. She's afraid of having to look

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 161

after Colin. IVe no illusions about mother. She's
always been like that. She wouldn't see what she was
doing to you. Before she did it she'd persuaded her-
self that it was CoUn and not Jerrold that you cared
for. And she wouldn't do it deliberately at all. I
know it has all the effect of low cunning, but it isn't.
It's just one of her sudden movements. She'd rush
into it on a blind impulse."

Anne saw it all, she saw that Adeline had slandered
her to Jerrold and to Eliot, that she had made use of
her love for Colin, which was her love for Jerrold, to
betray her; that she had betrayed her to safeguard her
own happy life, without pity and without remorse; she
had done all of these things and none of them. They
were the instinctive movements of her funk. Where
Adeline's ease and happiness were concerned she was
one incarnate funk. You couldn't think of her as a
reasonable and responsible being, to be forgiven or un-
forgiven.

"It doesn't matter how she did it. It's done now,"
she said.

"Really, Anne, it was too bad of Colin. He oughtn't
to have let you."

"He couldn't help it, poor darling. He wasn't in a
state. Don't put that into his head. It just had
to happen. ... I don't care, Eliot. If it was to be
done again to-morrow I'd do it. Only, if I'd known, I
could have told Jerrold the truth. The others can
think what they like. It'll only make me stick to Colin
all the more. I promised Jerrold I'd look after him
and I shall as long as he wants me. It servel them all
right. They all left him to me — Daddy and Aunt

162 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

Adeline and Queenie, I mean — and they can't stop
me now."

' ' Mother doesn't want to stop you. It's your father."

'^I'll write and tell Daddy. Besides, it's too late.
If I left Colin to-morrow it wouldn't stop the scandal.
My reputation's gone and I can't get it back, can I?"

*'Dear Anne, you don't know how adorable you are
without it."

" Look here, Eliot, what did your mother tdl you for? "

"Same reason. To put me off, too."

They looked at each other and smiled. Across their
memories, across the years of war, across Anne's agony
they smiled. Besides its coiurage and its young, candid
cynicism, Anne's smile expressed her utter trust in him.

"As if," Eliot said, "it would have made the smallest
difference."

"Wouldn't it have?"

"No, Anne. Nothing would."

"That's what Jerrold said. And he thought it. I
wondered what he meant." y

"He meant what I mean."

The moments passed, ticked oflf by the beating of
his heart, time and his heart beating violently together.
Not one of them was his moment, not one would serve
him for what he had to say, falling so close on their
intolerable conversation. He meant to ask Anne to
marry him; but if he did it now she would suspect him
of chivalry; it would look as if he wanted to make up
to her for all she had lost through Colin; as if he
wanted more than anything to save her.

So EUot, who had waited so long, waited a little
longer, till the evening of his last day.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 163

• ••

m

Anne had gone up with him to Wyck Manor, to see
the soldiers. Ever since they had come there she had
taken cream and fruit to them twice a week from the
Farm. Unaware of what was thought of her, she never
knew that the scandal of yoimg Fielding and Miss
Severn had penetrated the Convalescent Home with
the fruit and cream. And if she had known it she
would not have stayed away. People's beastliness was
no reason why she shouldn't go where she wanted,
where she had always gone. The Convalescent Home
belonged to the Fieldings, and the Fieldings were her
dearest friends who had been turned mto relations by
her father's marriage. So this evening, absorbed in
the convalescents, she never saw the matron's queer
look at her or her pointed way of talking only to Eliot.

Eliot saw it.

He thought: "It doesn't matter. She's so utterly
good that nothing can touch her. All the same, if she
marries me she'll be safe from this sort of thing."

They had come to the dip of the valley and the
Manor Farm water.

"Let's go up the beech walk," he said.

They went up and sat in the beech ring where Anne
had sat with Jerrold three months ago. Eliot never
realised how repeatedly Jerrold had been before him.

"Anne," he said, "it's more than five years since I
asked you to marry me."

"Is it, EUot?"

"Do you remember I said then I'd never give you
up?'^

164 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

''I remember. Unless Jerrold got me, you said.
Well, he hasn't got me."

''I wouldn't want you to tie yourself up with me if
there was the remotest chance of Jerrold; but, as there
isn't, don't you think "

"No, EUot, I don't."

''But you do care for me, Anne, a Uttle. I know
you do."

"I care for you a great deal; but not in that sort of
way."

"I'm not asking you to care for me in the way you
care for Jerrold. You may care for me any way you
please if you'll only marry me. You don't know how
viiwfuUy little I'd be content to take."

"I shouldn't be content to give it, though. You
oughtn't to have anything but the best."

"It would be the best for me, you see."

"Oh no, Eliot, it wouldn't. You only think it would
because you're an angel. It would be awful of me to
give so little when I take such a lot. I know what your
loving would be."

"If you know you must have thought of it. And if
you've thought of it "

"I've only thought of it to see how impossible it is.
It mightn't be if I could leave off loving Jerrold. But I
can't. . . . Eliot, I've got the queerest feeling about
him. I know you'll think me mad, when he's gone and
married somebody else, but I feel all the time as if he
hadn't, as if he belonged to me and always had; and I
to him. Whoever Maisie's married it isn't Jerrold.
Not the real Jerrold."

"The fact remains that she's married him."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGSJ 165

"No. Not him. Only a bit of him. Some bit that
doesn't matter."

''Anne darling, I'd try not to think that."

" I don^t think it. I feel it. Down there, deep inside
me. I've always felt that Jerrold would come back to
me and he came back. Then there was Colin. He'll
come back again."

"Then there'll be Maisie."

"No, then there won't be Maisie. There won't be
anything if he really comes. . . . Now you see how
mad I am. Now you see how awful it would be to
ma,rry me."

"No, Anne. I see it's the only way to keep you
safe." ^-

"Safe from what? Safe from Jerrold? I don't want
to be safe from him. Eliot, I'm telling you this because
you trust me. I want you to see me as I really am, so
that you won't want to marry me any more."

"Ah, that's not the way to make me. Nothing you
say makes any difference. Nothing you could do would
make any difference."

"Supposing it had been true what yoiu* mother said,
wouldn't that?"

"No. If you'd given yomrself to Colin I should only
have thought it was yom* goodness. It would have
been good because you did it."

"How queer. That's what Jerrold said. Then he
did love me."

"I told you he loved you."
Then I don't care. Nothing else matters."
That's all you have to say to me?"

"Yes. Unless I lie."

IM ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"You'd lie for Jerrold."

"For him. Not to him. I should never need to."

"You've no need to lie to me, dear. I know you
better than he does. You forget that I didn't think
what he thought."

"That only shows that he knew."

"Knew what?"

"What I am. What I might do if I really cared."

"There are things you'd never do. You'd never do
anything mean or dishonourable or cruel."

" Oh, you don't know what I'd do. . . . Don't worry,
Eliot. I shall be too busy with the land and with
C!olin to do very much."

"I'm not worrying."

All the same he wondered which of them knew Anne
best, he or Anne herself, or Jerrold.

XI
INTERIM

1

CouN thought with terror of the time when Queenle
would come back from the war. At any moment she
might get leave and come; if she had not had it yet
that only made it more likely that she would have it
soon.

The vague horror that waited for him every morning
had turned into this definite fear of Queenie. He was
afraid of her temper, of her voice and eyes, of her crude,
malignant thoughts, of her hatred of Anne. More than
anything he was afraid of her power over him, of her
vehement, exhausting love. He was afraid of her
beauty.

One morning, early in September, the wire came.
Colin shook with agitation as he read it.

''What is it?" Anne said.

"Queenie. She's got leave. She'll be here today.
At four o'clock."

"Don't you want to see her?"

"No, I don't."

"Then you'd better drive over to Eingden and look
at those bullocks of Ledbury's."

"I don't know anything about bullocks. They ought
to be straight lines from their heads to their tails.
That's about all I know."

" Never mind, you'll have gone to look at bullocks.

167

168 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

And you can tell Ledbury I'm coming over to-morrow.
Do you mind driving yourself?"

Colin did mind. He was afraid to drive by himself;
but he was much more afraid of Queenie.

''You can take Harry. And leave me to settle
Queenie."

Colin went off with Harry to Chipping Kingden.
And at four o'clock Queenie came. Her hard, fierce
eyes stared past Anne, looking for Colin.

"Where's Colm?" she said.

"He had to go out, but he'll be back before dinner."

Presently Queenie asked if she might go upstairs.
As they went you could see her quick, inquisitive eyes
sweeping and flashing.

The door of CoUn's room stood open.

"Is that Colin's room?"

"Yes."

She went in, opened the inner door and looked into
the gable room. «

"Who sleeps here?" she said.

"I do," said Anne.

"You?"

"Have you any objection?"

"You might as well sleep in my husband's room."

"Oh no, this is near enough. I can tell whether he's
asleep or^^awake."

" Can you? And, please, how long^has this^been
going on?"

"I've been sleeping in this room since November.
Before that we had ourold rooms at the Manor. There
was a passage between, you remember. But I left the
doors wide open."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 169

"I suppose," said Queenie, with furious calm, "you
want me to divorce him?"

"Divorce him? Why on earth should you? Just
because I looked after him at night? I had to. There
wasn't anybody else. And he was afraid to sleep alone.
He is stUl. But he's all right as long as he knows I'm
there."

"You expect me to beUeve that's all there is in it?"

"No, I don't, considering what your mind's like."

"Oh yes, when people do dirty things it's always
other people's dirty minds. Do you imagine I'm a
fool, Anne?"

You're an awful fool if you think Colin's my lover."
I think it, and I say it."

"If you think it you're a fool. If you say it you're a
liar. A damned liar."

"And is Colin's mother a liar, too?"

"Yes, but not a damned one. It would serve you
jolly well right, Queenie, if he was my lover, after the
way you left him to me."

' ' I didn't leave him to you. I left him to his mother. ' '

"Anyhow, you left him."

"I couldn't help it. You were not wanted at the
front and I was. I couldn't leave hundreds of wounded
soldiers just for Colin." •

"J had to. He was in an awful state. I've looked
after him day and night; I've got him almost well
now, and I think the least you can do is to keep quiet
and let him alone."

"I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall divorce him
as soon as the war's over."

"It isn't over yet. And I don't advise you to try.

170 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

No decent barrister would touch your case, it's so
rotten/'

'' Not half so rotten as you'll look when it's in all the
papers."

"You can't frighten me that way."

''Can't I? I suppose you'll say you were looking
after him? As if that didn't make it all the more
revolting. Nobody's going to believe it was Colin's
fault."

"Really, Queenie, you're too stupid for words. I
shall say he was too tired, poor darling, if you do bring
your siUy old action. Only please don't do it till he's
quite well, or he'll be ill again. ... I think that's tea
going in. Will you go down?"

They went down. Tea was laid in the big bare hall.
Thelmall round oak table brought them close together.
Anne waited on Queenie with every appearance of
polite attention. Queenie ate and drank in long, fierce
silences; for her himger was even more imperious than
her pride.

"I don't want to eat your food," she said at last.
" I'm only doing it because I'm starving. I dined with
Colin's mother last night. It was the first dinner I've
eaten since I went to the war."

"You needn't feel unhappy about it," said Anne.
" It's EUot's house and Jerrold's food. How's Cutler? "

"Much the same as when you saw him." Queenie
answered quietly, but her face was red.

"And that Johnnie — what was his name? — who
took my place?"

Queenie's flush darkened. She was holding her
mouth so tight that the thin red line of the lips faded.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 171

"Noel Fenwick," said Anne, suddenly remembering.

"What about him?" Queenie's throat moved as if
she swallowed something big iknd hard.

"Is he there stiU?''

"He was when I left."

Her angry, defiant eyes were fixed on the open door-
way. You could see she was waiting for Colin, ready
to fall on him and tear him as soon as he came in.

"Am I to see CoUn or not? " she said as she rose.

"Have you anything to say to him?"

"Only what I've said to you."

"Then you won't see him. In fact I think you'd
better not see him at all."

"You mean he funks it?"

"I funk it for him. He isn't well enough to be
raged at and threatened with proceedings. It'll ui>set
him horribly and I don't see what good it'll do you."

"No more do I. I'm not going to Uve with him after
this. You can tell him that. Tell him I don't want
to see him or speak to him again."

"I see. You just came down to make a row."

"You don't suppose I came down to stay with you
two?"

Queenie was so far from coming down to stay that
she had taken rooms for the night at the White Hart
in Wyck. Anne drove her there.

u

Two and a half years passed. Anne's work on the
farm filled up her days and marked them. Her times
were plough£g time and the time for sowing: wheat
first, and turnips after the wheat, barley after the tmv

172 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

nips^ sainfoiiii grass and clover after the barley. Oats
in the five-acre field this year; in the seven-acre field
the next. Lambing time^ calving time, cross-ploughing
and harrowing, washing and shearing time, time for
hoeing; hay time and harvest. Then threshing time
and ploughing again.

All siunmer the hard fight against the charlock^ year
after year the same; You harrowed it out and ploughed
it down and sprayed it with sulphate of copi)er; you
sowed vetches and winter com to crowd it out; and
always it sprang up again, flaring in bright yellow
stripes and fans about the hills. The air was sweet
with its smooth, delicious smell.

Always the same clear-cut pattern of the fields; but
the colors shifted. The slender, sharp-pointed triangle
that was jade-green last Jime, this Jime was yellow-
brown. The square under the dark comb of the planta-
tion that had been yellow-brown was emerald; the
wide-open fan beside it that had been emerald was
pink. By August the emerald had turned to red-gold
and the jade-green to white.

These changes marked the months and the years, a
bright patterned, imperceptibly moving measure, roll-
ing time off across the hills.

Nineteen sixteen, seventeen. Nineteen-eighteen and
the armistice. Nineteen-nineteen and the peace.

• • •
m

In the spring of that year Ajone and Colin were still
together at the Manor Farm. He was stronger. But,
though he did more and more work every year, he was
still unfit to take over the management himself. Ba-

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 173

sponsibility fretted him and he tired soon. He could
do nothing without Anne.

He was now definitely separated from his wife.
Queenie had come back from the war a year ago. As
soon as it was over she had begun to rage and consult
lawyers and write letters two or three times a week,
threatening to drag Anne and Colin through the
Divorce Court. But Miss Mullins (once the secretary
of Dr. Cutler's Field Ambulance Corps), recovering at
the Farm from an excess of war work, reassured them.
Queenie, she said, was only bluffing. Queenie was not
in a position to bring an action against any husband,
she had been too notorious herself. Miss Mullins had
seen things, and she intimated that no defence could
stand against the evidence she could give.

And -in the end Queenie left off talking about divorce
and contented herself with a judicial separation.

Colin stUl woke every morning to his dread of some
blank, undefined disaster; but, as if Queenie and the
war had made one obsession, he was no longer haunted
by the imminent crash of phantom shells. It was set-
tled that he was to Uve with Jerrold and Maisie when
they came back to the Manor, while Anne stayed on
by herself at the Farm.

Every now and then EUot came down to see them.
He had been sent home early in nineteeh-seventeen
with a shrapnel wound in his left leg, the bone shat-
tered. He obtained his discharge at the price of a per-
manent Ump, and went back to his research work.

For the two last two years he had been investigating
trench fever, with results that yere to make him
famous. But that was not for another year.

174 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

In February^ nineteen-nineteen^ Jerrold had come
back. He and Maisie had been living in London ever
since he had left the Army, filling in time till Wyck
Manor would be no longer a Home for Convalescent
Soldiers. He had tried to crowd into this interval all
the amusement he hadn't had for four years. His way
was to crush down the past with the present; to pile
up engagements against the future^ party on party,
dances on suppers and suppers on plays; to dine every
evening at some place where they hadn't dined before;
to meet lots of nice amusing people with demobilised
minds who wouldn't talk to him about the war; to let
himself go in bursts of exquisitely imbecile laughter;
never to be quiet for an hour, never to be alone with
himself, never to be long alone with Maisie.

After the first week of it this sort of thing ceased to
amuse him, but he went on with it because he thought
it amused Maisie.

There was something he missed; somethmg he
wanted and. hadn't got. At night, when he lay awake,
alone with himself at last, he knew that it was Anne.

And he went on laughing and amusing Maisie; and
Maisie, with a heart-breaking sweetness, laughed back
at him and declared herself amused. She had never
had such a jolly time in all her life, she said.

Then, very early in the spring, Maisie went down
to her people in Yorkshire to recover from the jolly
time she had had. The convalescent soldiers had all
gone, and Wyck Manor, rather worn and shabby, was
Wyck Manor again.

Jerrold came back to it alone.

XII
COLIN, JERROLD, AND ANNE

He went through the wide empty hoiise, looking
through all the rooms, trjdng to find some memory of
the happiness he had had there long ago. The house
was full of Anne. Anne's figure crossed the floors
before him, her head turned over her shoulder ^to see
if he were coming; her voice called to him from the
doorways, her running feet soimded on the stairs. That
was her place at the table; that was the armchair she
used to curl up in; just there, on the landing, he had
kissed her when he went to school.

They had given his mother's room to Maisie, and
they had put his things into the room beyond, his
father's room. Everything was in its place as it had
been in his father's time, the great wardrobe, the white
marble-topped washstand, the bed he had died on. He
saw him lying there and Anne going to and fro between
the washstand and the bed. The parrot ciu1;ains hmig
from the windows, straight and stiU.

Jerrold shuddered as he looked at these things.

They had thought that he would want to sleep in
that room because he was married, because Maisie
woiild have the room it led out of.

But he couldn't sleep in it. He couldn't stay in it
a minute; he would never pass its door without that

175

176 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

sickening pang of memory. He moved his things across
the gallery into Anne's room.

He would sleep there; he would sleep in the white
bed that Anne had slept in.

He told himself that he had to be near Colin; there
was only the passage between and their doors could
stand open; that was why he wanted to sleep there.
But 4^ knew that was not why. He wanted to sleep
there because there was no other room where he could
feel Anne so near him, where he could see her so clearly.
When the dawn came she would be with him, sitting
in her chair by the window. The window looked to the
west, to Upper Speed and the Manor Farm house. The
house was down there behind the trees, and somewhere
there, jutting out above the porch, was the window of
Anne's room.

He looked at his watch. One o'clock. At two he
would go and see Anne.

u

When Jerrold called at the Manor Farm house Anne
was out. Old Ballinger came slouching up from the
farmyard to tell him that Miss Anne had gone up to
the Far Acres field to try the new tractor.

The Far Acres field lay at the western end of the
estate. Jerrold followed her there. Five furrows, five
bright brown bands on the sallow stubble, marked out
the Far Acres into five plots. In the turning space at
the top comer he saw Anne on her black horse and
Colin standing beside her.

With a great clanking and clanging the new American,
tractor struggled towards them up the hill.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 177

its plough. It stopped and turned at the '^ headland''
as Jerrold eame up.

A clear, light wind blew over the hill and he felt a
sudden happiness and excitement. He was beginning
to take an interest in his land. He shouted:

" I say, Anne, you look like Napoleon at the battle
of Waterloo."

*'0h, not Waterloo, I hope. I'm going to win my
battle."

*' Well, Marengo — Austerlitz — whatever battles he
did win. Does Curtis understand that infernal thing? "

Young Curtis, sulky and stolid on his driver's seat,
stared at his new master.

"Yes. He's been taught motor mechanics. He's
quite good at it. . . . If only he'd do what you tell
him. Curtis, I said you were not to use those disc
coulters for this field. I've had three smashed in two
weeks. They're no earthly good for stony soil."
'Tis n' so bad 'ere as it is at the east end, miss."
Well, we'll see. You can let her go now."

With a fearful grinding and clanking the bractor
started. The revolving disc coulter cut the earth; the
three great shares gripped it and turned it on one side.
But the earth, instead of slanting off clear from the
furrows, fell back again. Anne dismounted and ran
after the tractor and stopped it.

" He hasn't got his plough set right," she said. " It's
too deep in."

She stooped, and did something mysterious and effi-
cient with a lever; the wheels dipped, raising the shares
to their right level, and the tractor set off again. This
time the earth parted clean from the furrows with the

178 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

noise of surge, and three slanting, glistening waves m
the length of the field in the wake of the triple ploiq^

''Oh, Jerrold, look at those three lovely furrows.
Look at the pace it goes. This field will be ploughed
up in a day or two. Colin, aren't you pleased? '*

The tractor was coming towards them, mi^lring %
most horrible noise.

" No," he said, " I don't like the row it makes. Can't
I go, now I've seen what the beastly thing can do?"

"Yes. You'd better go if you can't stand it."

Colin went with quick, desperate strides down|[the
field away from the terrifying soimd of the tractor.

They looked after him sorrowfully.

"He's not right yet. I don't think he'll ever be able
to stand noises."

"You must give him time, Anne."

"Time? He's had three years. It's heart-breaking.
I must just keep him out of the way of the tractors,
that's all."

She mounted her horse and went riding up and down
the field, abreast of the plough.

Jerrold waited for her at the gate of the field.

• • .
m

It was Sunday evening between five and six.

Anne was in the house, in the great Jacobean room
on the first floor. Barker had judged it too large and
too dilapidated to live in, and it had been left empty in
his time. Eliot had had it restored and Jerrold had
furnished it. Black oak bookcases from the Manor
stretched along the walls, for Jerrold had given Eliot
half of their father's books. This room would be

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 179 ^

EHiot's library when he came down. It was now Anne's
dtting-room.

The leaded windows were thrown open to the grey
evening and a drizzling rain; but a fire blazed on the
great hearth under the arch of the carved stone chim-
ney-piece. Anne's couch was drawn up before it. She
lay stretched out on it, tired with her week's work.

She was all alone in the house. The gardener and
his wife went out together every Simday to spend the
evening with their families at Medlicote or Wyck. She
was not sorry when they were gone; the stillness of the
house rested her. But she missed Colin. Last Sunday
he had been there, sitting beside her in his ch|dr by
the hearth, reading. Today he was with Jerrold at the
Manor. The soft drizzle turned to a quick patter of
rain; a curtain of rain fell, covering the grey fields
between the farm and the Manor, cutting her off.

She was listening to the rain when she heard the
click of the gate and feet on the garden path. They
stopped on the flagstones under her window. Jerrold's
voice called up to her.

*' Anne — Anne, are you there? Can I come up?"

"Rather."

He came rushing up the stau^. He was in the room
now.

"How nice of you to come on this beastly evening."

"That's why I came. I thought it would be so
rotten for you all alone down here."

"What have you done with Colin?"

"Left him up there. He was making no end of a
row on the piano."

"Oh Jerrold, if he's playing again he'll be all right."

180 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS

''He didn't sound as if there was much the matter
with him/'

'' You never can tell. He can't stand those tractors.''

''We must keep him away from the beastly things.
I suppose we've got to have 'em?"

"I'm afraid so. They save no end of labour, and
labour's short and dear."

" Is that why you've been working yoiu'self to death?"

"I haven't. Why, do I look dead? "

" No. EUot told me. He saw you at it."

"I only take a hand at hay time and harvest. All the
rest oL the year it's just riding about and seeing that
other people work. And Colin does half of that now."

"All the same, I think it's about time you stopped."

"But if I stop the whole thing'U stop. The men
must have somebody over them."

"There's me."

"You don't know anything about farming, Jerry
dear. You don't know a teg from a wether."

"I suppose I can learn if Colin's learnt. Or I cac
get another Barker."

" Not so easy. Don't you like my looking after your
land, then? Aren't you pleased with me? I haven't
done so badly, you know. Seven himdred acres."

"You've been simply splendid. I shall never forget
what you've done. And I shall never forgive myself
for letting you do it. I'd no idea what it meant."

"It's only meant that Colin's better and I've been
happier than I ever thought I could have been."

"Happier? Weren't you happy then?"

She didn't answer. They were on dangerous ground.
If they began talking about happiness

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 181

*'If I gave it up to-morrow," she said, "I should only
go and work on another farm."

"Would you?"

*' Jerrold — do you want me to go?"

*' Want you?"

"Yes. You did once. At least, you wanted to get
away from me."

"I didn't know what I was doing. If I had known
I shouldn't have done it. I can't talk about that,
Anne. It doesn't bear thinking about."

"No. But, Jerrold — tell me the truth. Do you
want me to go because of Colin?"

"Colin?"

"Yes. Because of what your mother told you?"

"How do you know what she told me?"

"She told Eliot."

* ^ And he told youf Good God ! what was he thinking
of?"

"He thought it better for me to know it. It was
better."

"How could it be?"

" I can't tell you. . . . Jerrold, it isn't true."

"I know it isn't."

"But you thought it was."

"When did I think it?"

"Then; when you came to see me."

"Did I?"

"Yes. And you're not going to lie about it now."

"Well, if I did I've paid for it."

(What did he mean? Paid for it? It was she who
had paid.)

"When did you know it wasn't true?" she said.

182 ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS

11

Three months af ter, when Eliot wrote and told me.
It was too late then. ... If only you'd told me at the
tune. Why didn't you?"

*'But I didn't know you thought it. How could I
know?"

"No. How could you? Who would have believed
that things could have happened so danmably as that?"

"But it's all right now. Why did you say it was too
late?"

"Because it was too late. I was married."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I lied when I told you it made no
difference. It made that difference. If I hadn't
thought that you and Colin were ... if I hadn't
thought that, I wouldn't have married Maisie. I'd
have married you."

"Don't say that, Jerrold."

"Well — you asked for the truth, and there it is."

She got up and walked away from him to the win-
dow. He followed her there. She spread out her hands
to the cold rain.

"It's raining still," she said.

He caught back her hands.

"Would you have married me?"

"Don't, Jerrold, don't. It's cruel of you."

He was holding her by her hands.

''Would yon? Tell me. Tell me."

"Let go my hands, then."

He let them go. They timied back to the fireplace. '
Anne shivered. She held herself to the warmth.

"You haven't told me," he said.

"No, I haven't told you," she repeated, stupidly.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS 183

"That's because you would. That's because you
love me. You do love me."

"IVe always loved you."

She spoke as if from some far-off place; as if the
eternity of her love removed her from him, put her
beyond his reach.

"But — what's the good of talking about it?" she
said.

"All the good in the world. We owed each other
the truth. We know it now; we know where we are.
We needn't himibug ourselves and each other any
more. You see what comes of keeping back the truth.
Look how we've had to pay for it. You and me. Would
you rather go on thinking I didn't care for you?"

"No, Jerrold, no. I'm only wondering what we're
to do next."

"Next?"

"Yes. ThaCs why you want me to go away."

"It isn't. It's why I want you to stay. I want you
to leave off working and do aU the jolly things we used
to do."

"You mustn't make me leave off working. It's my
only chance."

They turned restlessly from the fireplace to the
couch. They sat one at each end of it, still for a long
tune, without speaking. The fire died down. The
evening darkened in the rain. The twilight came be-
tween them, poignant and disquieting, dinmiing their
faces, making them strange and wonderful to each other.
Their bodies loomed up through it, wonderful and
strange. The high white stone chimney-piece glim*
mered like an arch into some inner place.

1S4 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

Outside, from the church below the farm house, the
bell tmkled for service.

It ceased.

Suddenly they rose and he came towards her to take
her in his arms. She beat down his hands and hung
on them, keeping him off.

"Don't, Jerry, please, please don't hold me.*'

"Oh Anne, let me. You let me onoe. Don't you
remember? '*

"We can't now. We mustn't."

And yet she knew that it would happen in some time»
in some way. But not now. Not like this.

"We mustn't."

"Don't you want me to take you in my arms?''

"No. Not that."

"What, then?" He pressed tighter.

"I want you not to hurt Maisie."

"It's too late to think of Maisie now."

"I'm not thinking of her. I'm thinking of you.
You'll hurt yourself frightfully if you hurt her."

She wrenched his hands apart and went from him to
the door.

"What are you going to do?" he said.

"I'm going to fetch the lamp."

She left him standing there.

A few minutes later she came back carrying the
lighted lamp. He took it from her and set it on the
table.

"And now?"

"Now you're going back to Colin. And we're both
going to be good. . . . You do want to be good —
don't you?"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 185

" Yes. But I don't see how we're going to manage it."

"We could manage it if we didn't see each other. If
I went away."

"Anne, you wouldn't. You can't mean that. I
couldn't stand not seeing you. You couldn't stand it,
either."

"I have stood it. I can stand it again."

"You can't. Not now. It's all different. I swear
I'll be decent. I won't say another word if only you
won't go."

"I don't see how I can very well. There's the land.
« . . No. Colin must look after that. I'll go when the
ploughing's done. And some day you'll be glad I went.'^

"Go. Go. You'll find out then."

Their tenderness was over. Something hard and
defiant had come in to them with the light. He was at
the door now.

"And you'll come back/' he said. "You'll see you'll
come back."

xra

ANNE AND JERROLD

1

When he was gone she turned on herself in fury.
What had she done it for? Why had she let ^im go?
She didn't want to be good. She wanted nothing in the
world but Jerrold.

She hadn't done it for Maisie. Maisie was nothing
to her. A woman she had never seen and didn't want
to see. She knew nothing of her but her name, and
that was sweet and vague like a perfiune coming from
some place imknown. She had no sweet image of
Maisie in her mind. Maisie might never have existed
for all that Anne thought about her.

What did she do it for, then? Why didn't she take
him when he gave himself? When she knew that in
the end it must come to that?

As far as she could see through her darkness it was
because she knew that Jerrold had not meant to give
himself when he came to her. She had driven him to
it. She had made him betray his secret when she asked
for the truth. At that moment she was the stronger;
she had him at a disadvantage. She couldn't take
him like that, through the sudden movement of his
weakness. Before she surrendered she must know first
whether Jerrold's passion for her was his weakness or
his strength. Jerrold didn't know yet. She must give
him time to find out.

186

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS 187

But before all she had been afraid that if Jerrold
hurt Maisie he would hurt himself. She must know
which was going to hurt him more, her refusal or her
surrender. If he wanted "to be good" she must go
away and give him his chance.

And before the ploughing was all over she had gone.

She went down into Essex, to see how her own farm
was getting on. The tenant who had the house wanted
to buy it when his three years' lease was up. Anne had
decided that she would let him. The lease would be
up in June. Her agent advised her to sell what was
left of the farm land for building, which was what
Anne had meant to do. She wanted to get rid of the
whole place and be free. All this had to be looked into.

She had not been gone from Jerrold a week before
the tortiure of separation became unbearable. She had
said that she could bear it because she had borne it
before, but, as Jerrold had pointed out to her, it wasn't
the same thing now. There was all the difference in
the world between Jerrold's going away from her be-
cause he didn't want her, and her going away from
Jerrold because he did. It was the difference between
putting up with a dull continuous pain you had to bear,
and enduring a sharp agony you coidd end at any
minute. Before, she had only given up what she
couldn't get; now, she was giving up what she could
have to-morrow by simply going back to Wyck.

She loathed the flat Essex country and the streets of
little white rough cast and red-tiled houses on the
Hford side where the clear fields had once lain beyond
the tall elm rows. She was haunted by the steep, many-
coloured pattern of the hills round Wyck, and the grey

188 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

gables of the Manor. Love-sickness and home-sickness
tore at her together till her heart felt as if it w^:e
stretched out to breaking point.
She had only to go back and she would end this pain.
Then on the sixth day Jerrold's wire came :
^' Colin ill again. Please come back. Jerrold.''

u

It was not her fault and it was not Jerrold's. The
thing had been taken out of their hands. She had not
meant to go and Jerrold had not meant to send for her.
Colin must have made him. They had lost each other
through Colin and now it was Colin who had brought
them together.

Colin's terror had come again. Again he had the
haunting fear of the tremendous rushing noise, the
crash always about to come that never came. He slept
in brief fits and woke screaming.

Eliot had been down to see him and had gone. And
again, as before, nobody could do anything with him
but Anne.

"I couldn't," Jerrold said, "and Eliot couldn't. Eliot
made me send for you."

They had left Colin upstairs and were together in the
drawing-room. He stood in the full wash of the sun-
light that flooded in through the west window. It
showed his face drawn and haggard, and discoloiired,
as though he had come through a long illness. His
mouth was hard with pain. He stared away from her
with heavy, wounded eyes. She looked at him and was
frightened.

"Jerrold, have you been ill?"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FBELDINGS 189

"No. What makes you think so?^'

"You look iU. You look as if you hadn't slept for
ages.'*

"I haven't.. I've been frightfully worried about
CoUn."

"Have you any idea what set him oflF again?"

"I believe it was those infernal tractors. He would
go out with them after you'd left. He said he'd have
to, as long as you weren't there. And he couldn't stand
the row. Eliot said it would be that. And the respon-
dbility, the feeling that everything depended on him."

"I see. I oughtn't to have left him."

"It looks like it."

"What else did EUot say?"

"Oh, he thinks perhaps he might be better at the
Farm than up here. He thinks it's bad for him sleeping
in that room where he was frightened when he was a
kid. He says it all hooks on to that. What's more, he
says he may^go on having these relapses for years.
Any noise or strain or excitement '11 bring them on«
Do you mind his being at the Farm again?"

"Mind? Of course I don't. If I'm to look after
him and the land it'll be very much easier there than
here."

For every night at Colin's bedtime Anne came up to
the Manor. She slept in the room that was to be
Maisie^s. When Colin screamed she went to him and
sat with him till he slept again. In the morning she
went back to the Farm.

She had been doing this for a week now, and Colin
was better.

190 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

But he didn't want to go back. If, he said, Jerrold
didn't mind having him.

Jerrold wanted to know why he didn't want to gp
iback and Colin told him.

"Hasn't it occurred to you that I've hurt Anne
enough without beginning all over again? All these
damned people here think I'm her lover."

''You can't help that. You're not the only one
that's hurt her. We must try and make it up to her,
that's all."

"How are we going to do it?"

"My God! I don't know. I shall begin by cutting
the swine who've cut her."

"That's no good. She doesn't care if they do cut
her. She only cares about us. She's done everything
for us, and among us all we've done nothing for her.
Absolutely nothing. We can't give her anything. We
haven't got anything to give her that she wants."

Jerrold was silent.

Presently he said, "She wants Sutton's farm. Sut-
ton's dying. I shall give it to her when he's dead."

"You think that'll make up?"

"No, Colin, I don't. Supposing we don't talk about
it any more."

"All right. I say, when's Maisie coming home?"

"God only knows. I don't."

He wondered how much Colin knew.

...
m

February had gone. They were in the middle of
March, and still Maisie had not come back.
She wrote sweet little letters to him saying she was

ANNE] SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 191

sorry to be so long away, but her mother wanted her
to stay on another week. When Jerrold wrote asking
her to come back (he did this so that he might feel
that he had really played the game) she answered that
they wouldn't let her go till she was rested, and she
wasn't quite rested yet. Jerrold mustn't imagine she
was the least bit ill, only rather tired after the winter's
racketing. It would be heavenly to see him again.

Then when she was rested her mother got ill and she
had to go with her to Torquay. And at Torquay
Maisie stayed on and on.

And Jerrold didn't imagine she had been the least bit
ill, or even very tired, or that Lady Durham was ill.
He preferred to think that Maisie stayed away because
she wanted to, because she cared about her people more
than she cared about him. The longer she stayed the
more obstinately he thought it. Here was he, trying
to play the game, trying to be decent and keep straight,
and there was Maisie leaving him alone with Anne and
making it impossible for him.

Anne had been back at the Farm a week and he had
not been to see her. But Maisie's last letter made him
wonder whether, really, he need try any more. He
was ill and miserable. Why should he make himself
ill and miserable for a woman who didn't care whether
he was ill and miserable or not? Why shouldn't he go
and see Anne? Maisie had left him to her.

And on Sunday morning, suddenly, he went.

There had been a sharp frost ovemi^t. Every
branch and twig, every blade of grass, every crinkle in
the road was edged with a white fur of rime. It
crackled under his feet. He drank down the cold, clean

192 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

air like water. His whole body felt cold and clean. He
was aware of its strength in the hard tension of his
muscles as he walked. His own movement exhilarated
and excited him. He was going to see Anne.

Anne was not in the house. He went through the
yards looking for her. In the stockyard he met her
coming up from the sheepfold, carrying a young lamb
in her arms. She smiled at him as she came.

She wore her farm dress, knee breeches and a thing
like an old trench coat, and looked superb. She went
bareheaded. Her black hair was brushed up from her
forehead and down over her ears, the length of it rolled
in on itself in a curving mass at the back. Over it the
frost had raised a crisp web of hair that covered its solid
smoothness like a net. Anne's head was the head of a
hunting Diana ; it might have fitted into the sickle moon.

The lamb's queer knotted body was like a grey liga-
ment between its hind and fore quarters. It rested on
Anne's arms, the long black legs dangling. The black-
faced, hammer-shaped head hung in the hollow of her
elbow.

"This is Colin's job," she said.

"What are you doing with it?"

"Taking it indoors to nurse it. It's been frozen
stiff, poor darling. Do you mind looking in the bam
and seeing if you can find some old sacks there?"

He looked, found the sacks and carried them, fol-
lowing her into the kitchen. Anne fetched a piece of
old blanket and wrapped the lamb up. They made a
bed of the sacks before the fire and laid it on it. She
warmed some milk, dipped her fingers in it and put
them into the lamb's mouth to see if it would suck.

^ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 193

'*I didn't know they'd do that," he said.

" Oh, they'll suck anythmg. When you've had them
a little time they'll climb into your lap like puppies
and suck the buttons on your coat. Its mother's dead
and we shall have to bring it up by hand."

^'I doubt if you wiU."

''Oh yes, I shall save it. It can suck all right. You
might tell Colin about it. He looks after the sick
lambs."

She got up and stood looking down at the lamb
tucked in its blanket, while Jerrold looked at her.
When she looked down Anne's face was divinely tender,
as if all the love in the world was in her heart. He •
loved to agony that tender, downward-looking face.

She raised her eyes and saw his fixed on her, heavy
and wounded, and his face strained and drawn with
pain. And again she was frightened.

"Jerrold, you are ill. What is it?"

"Don't. They'll hear us." He glanced at the open
door.

"They can't. He's in church and she's upstairs in
the bedrooms."

"Can't you leave that animal and come somewhere
where we can talk? "

"Come, then."

He followed her out through the hall and into the
small, oak-panelled dining-room. They sat down there
in chairs that faced each other on either side of the
fireplace.

' ' What is it ? " she repeated. ' ' Have you got a pain? ''

"A beastly pain."

''How long have you had it?"

194 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Ever since you went away. I lied when I told you
it was Colin. It isn't."

"What is it, then? Tell me. Tell me."

"It's not seeing you. It's this insane life we're
leading. It's making me ill. You don't know what
it's been like. And I can't keep my promise. I — I
love you too damnably." '

"Oh, Jerrold — does it hurt as much as that?"

"You know how it hurts."

" I don't want you to be hurt But — darling —

if you care for me like that how could you marry
Maisie?"

"Because I cared for you. Because I was so mad
about you that nothing mattered. I thought I might
as well marry her as not."

"But if you didn't care for her?"

"I did. I do, in a way. Maisie's awfully sweet.
Besides, it wasn't that. You see, I was going out to
France, and I thought I was boimd to be killed. No-
body could go on having the luck I'd had. I wanted to
be killed."

"So you were sure it would happen. You always
thought things would happen if you wanted them."

"I was absolutely sure. I was never more sold in
my life than when it didn't. Even then I thought it
would be all right till Eliot told me. Then I knew.that
if I hadn't been in such a damned hiury I might have
married you."

"Poor Maisie."

"Poor Maisie. But she doesn't know. And if she
did I don't think she'd mind much. I married her
because I thought she cared about me — and because

ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS 195

[ thought I'd be killed before I could come back to
her — But she doesn't fcare a damn. So you needn't*
bother about Maisie. And you won't go away again?"

"I won't go away as long as you want me."

"That's all right then."

He looked at his watch.

"I must be oflF. They'll be coming out of church.
I don't want them to see me here now because I'm
coming back in the evening. We shall have to be
awfully careful how we see each other. I say — I may
come this evening, mayn't I?"

"Yes."

"Same time as last Sunday? You'll be alone then? "

"Yes." Her voice sounded as if it didn't belong to
her. As if some other person stronger than she, were
answering for her.

When he had gone she called after him.

"Don't forget to tell Colin about the lamb."

She went upstairs and slipped off her farm clothes
and put on the brown-silk frock she had worn when he
last came to her. She looked in the glass and was glad
tiMkt she was beautiful.

iv

She b^an to count the minutes and the hours till
Jerrold came. Dinner time passed.

All afternoon she was restless and excited. She wan-
dered from room to room, as if she were looking for
something she couldn't find. She went to and fro
between the dining-room and kitchen to see how the
Iamb was getting on. Wrapped in its blanket, it lay
asleep after its meal of milk. Its body was warm to the

% »

196 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

touch and under its soft ribs she could feel the beating
of its heart. It would live.

Two o'clock. She took up the novel she had been
reading before Jerrold had come and tried to get back
into it. Ten minutes passed. She had read through
three pages without taking in a word. Her mind went
back and back to Jerrold, to the morning of today, to
the evening of last Sunday, going over and over the
things they had said to each other; seeing Jerrold
again, with every movement, every gesture, the sudden
shining and darkening of his eyes, and his tense drawn
look of pain. How she must have hurt him!

It was his looking at her like that, as if she had hurt
him Anne never could hold out against other peo-
ple's unhappiness.

Half past two.

She kicked off her shoes, put on her thick boots and
her coat, and walked two miles up the road towards
Medlicote, for no reason but that she couldn't sit still.
It was not foiu: o'clock when she got back. She went
into the kitchen and looked at the .lamb again.

She thought: Supposing Colin comes down to see
it when Jerrold's here? But he wouldn't come. Jerrold
would take care of that. Or supposing the Kimbers
stayed in? They wouldn't. They never did. And if
they did, why not? Why shouldn't Jerrold come to
see her?

Foiu: o'clock struck. She had the fire lit in the big
upstairs sitting-room. Tea was brought to her there.
Mrs. Kimber glanced at her where she lay back on the
couch, her hands hanging loose in her lap.

"You're tired after all your week's work, miss?"

a

a

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEBLDINGS 197

"AUttle/'

"And I dare say you miss Mr. CJolin?"
Yes, I miss him very much."
No doubt he'll be coming down to see the lamb/'
Oh yes; he'll want to see the lamb."

"And you're sure you don't mind me and Kimber
going out, miss?"

"Not a bit. I like you to go."

"It's a wonder to me," said Mrs. Kimber, "as you're
not afraid to be left alone in this 'ere house. But
Kimber says, Miss Anne, she isn't afraid of nothing.
And I don't suppose you are, what with going out to
the war and all."

"There's not much to be afraid of here."

"That there isn't. Not unless 'tis people's nasty
tongues."

" They don't frighten me, Mrs. Kimber."

"No, miss. I should think not indeed. And no
reason why they should."

And Mrs. Kimber left her.

A sound of pails clanking came from the yard. That
was Minchin, the cow man, going from the dairy to the
cow sheds. Milking time, then. It must be half past
four.

Five o'clock, the slamming of the front door, the
click of the gate, and the Kimbers' voices in the road
below as th^y went towards Wyck.

Anne was alone.

Only half an hour and Jerrold would be with her.
The beating of her heart was her measiure of time now.
What would have happened before he had gone again?
She didn't know. She didn't try to know. It was

198 ' ANNE SEVERN ANDiTHE^ FIELDINGS

enough that she knew herself , and Jerrold; that she
hadn't humbugged herself or him, pretending that their
passion was anything but what it was. She saw it
» clearly in its reality. They couldn't go on as they were.
In the end something must happen. They were being
drawn to each other, irresistibly, inevitably, nearer and
nearer, and Anne knew that a moment would come
when she would give herself to him. But that it would
come today or to-morrow or at any fore-appointed time
she did not know. It would come, if it came at all,
when she was not looking for it. She had no purpose
in her, no will to make it come.

She couldn't think. It was no use trying to. The
thumping of her heart beat down her thou^ts. Her
brain swam in a warm darkness. Every now and then
names drifted to her out of the darkness: Colin —
Eliot — Maisie.

Maisie. Only a name, a soimd that haunted her
always, like a vague, sweet perfume from an imknown
place. But it forced her to think.

What about Maisie? It would have been awful to
take Jerrold away from Maisie, if she cared for him.
But she wasn't taking him away. She couldn't take
away what Maisie had never had. And Maisie didn't
care for Jerrold ; and if she didn't care she had no right
to keep him. She had nothing but her legal claim.

Besides, what was done was done. The sin against
Maisie had been committed already in Jerrold's heart
when it turned from her. Whatever happened, or
didn't happen, afterwards, nothing could undo that.
And Maisie wouldn't suffer. She wouldn't know.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 199

Her thoughts went out again on the dark flood. She
couldn't think any more.

Half past five.

She started up at the click of the gate. That was
Jerrold.

He came to her quickly and took her in his arms.
And her brain was swamped again with the warm,
heavy darkness. She could feel nothing but her pulses
beating, beating against his, and the quick droning of
the blood in her ears. Her head was bent to his breast;
he stooped and kissed the nape of her neck, lightly,
brushing the smooth, sweet, roseleaf skin. They stood
together, pressed close, closer, to each other. He
clasped his hands at the back of her head and drew it
to him. She leaned it hard against the clasping hands,
tilting it so that she saw his face, before it stooped
again, closing down on hers.

Their arms slackened; they came apart, drawing
their hands slowly, reluctantly, down from each other's
shoulders.

They sat down, she on her couch and he in Colin's
chair.

"Is Colin coming?" she said.

"No, he isn't."

"Well — the lamb's better."

"I never told him about the lamb. I didn't want
him to come."

"Is he all right?"

"I left him playing."

The darkness had gone from her brain and the

200 ANNB SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS

tumult from her senses. She felt nothing but her heart
straining towards him in an immense tenderness that
was half pity.

''Are you thinking about Colin?" he said.

''No. I'm not thinking about anything but you.
. . . Now you know why I was happy looking after
Colin. Why I was happy working on the land. Because
he was your brother. Because it was your land. Be-
cause there wasn't anything else I could do for you."

"And I've done nothing for you. I've only hurt
you horribly. I've brought you nothing but trouble
and danger."

"I don't care."

"No, but think. Anne darling, this is going to be
a very risky business. Are you sure you can go througih
with it? Are you sure you're not ciraid?"

"I've never been much afraid of anything."

"I ought to be afraid for you."

"Don't. Don't be afraid. The more dangerous it
is the better I shall like it."

"I don't know. It was bad enough in all conscience

for you and Colin. It'll be worse for us if we're found

out. Of course we shan't be foimd out, but there's

always a risk. And it would be worse for you tiian for

^me, Anne."

"I don't care. I want it to be. Besides, it won't.
It'll be far worse for you because of Maisie. That's
the only thing that maJtes it wrong."

"Don't think about that, darling."

"I don't. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care
how wrong it is if it makes you happy. And if God's
going to punish either of us I hope it'll be me."

^^

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 201

"God? The God doesn't exist who could punish
you."

"I don't care if he does punish me so long as you're
let off."

She came over to him and slid to the floor and
crouched beside him and laid her head against his
knees. She clasped his knees tight with her arms.

"I don't want you to be hurt," she said. "I can't
bear you to be hurt. But what can I do?"

"Stay Uke that. Close. Don't go."

She stayed, pressing her face down tighter, rubbing
her cheek against his rough tweed. He put his arm
roxmd her shoulder, holding her there; his fingers
stroked, stroked the back of her neck, pushed up
through the fine roots of her hair, giving her the caress
she loved. Her nerves thrilled with a sudden 'secret
bliss.

" Jerrold, it's heaven when you touch me." ^ ^

"I know. It's hell for me when I don't."

" I didn't know. I didn't know. If only I'd known."

"We know now."

There was a long silence. Now and again she felt
him stirring xmeasily. Once he sighed and her heart
tightened. At last he bent over her and lifted her up
and set her on his knee. She lay back gathered in his
arms, with her head on his breast, satisfied, Hke a child.

" Jerrold, do you remember how you used to hold me
to keep me from falling in the goldfish pond?"

"Yes."

"I've loved you ever since then."

"Do you remember how I kissed you when I went
to school?"

202 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Yes."

"And the night that Nicky died?"

"Yes."

"I've been sleeping in that room, because it was
yours."

"Have you? Did vou love me theriy that night?"

"Yes. But I didn't know I did. And then Father's
death came and stopped it."

"I know. I know."

"Anne, what a brute I was to you. Can you ever
forgive me?"

"I forgave you long ago."

"Talk of punishments "

"Don't talk of punishments."

Presently they left off talking, and he kissed her.
He kissed her again and again, with light kisses brush-
ing her face for its sweetness, with quick, hard kisses
that hurt, with slow, deep kisses that stayed where
they fell ; kisses remembered and unremembered, longed
for, imagined and unimaginable.

The church bell began ringing for service, short notes
first, tinkling and tinkling; then a hxurying and scat-
tering of soxmds, soxmds falling together, running into
each other, covering each other; one long throbbing
and clanging soxmd; and then hard, slow strokes,
measuring out the seconds like a clock. They waited
till the bell ceased.

The dusk gathered. It spread from the comers to
the middle of the room. The tall white arch of the
chimney-piece jutted out through the dusk.

Anne stirred slightly.

"I say, how dark it's getting."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 203

"Yes. I like it. Don't get the lamp."

They sat clinging together, waiting for the dark.

The window panes were a black glimmer in the grey.
He got up and drew the curtains, shutting out the
black glimmer of the panes. He came to her and
lifted her in his arms and carried iier to the couch and
laid her on it.

She shut her eyes and waited.

XIV
MAISIE

He didn't know what he was going to do about
Maisie.

On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home.
He had motored her up from the station, and now the
door of the drawing-room had closed on them and they
were alone together in there.

" Oh, Jerrold — it is nice — to see you — i^ain.'^

She panted a little, a way she had when she was
excited.

''Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on
earth he was going do do next.

He had been all right on the station platform where
their greetings had been public and perfunctory, but
now he would have to do something intimate and,
above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick.

They looked at each other and he took again the
impression she had always given him of delicate beauty
and sweetness. She was tall and her neck bent slightly
forward as she walked; this gave her the air of bowing
prettUy, of offermg you something with a chanping
grace. Her shoulders and her hips had the same long,
slenderly sloping curves. Her hair was mole brown on
the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way that
imcovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the

204

ANNE SEVERN, AND THE FIELDINGS 205

thin bluish whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue
eyes looked larger than they were because of their dark
brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about
their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low
and straight in the bridge, then curved under, delicately
acquiline, its nostrils were close and clean cut. Her
small, close upper lip had a flying droop; and her chin
curved slightly, ever so slightly, away to her throat.
When she talked Maisie's mouth and the tip of her nose
kept up the same sensitive, quivering play. But Maisie's
eyes were still; they had no sparkling speech; they
listened, deeply attentive to the person who was there.
They took up the smile her mouth began and was too
small to finish.

And now, as they looked at him, he felt that he
ought to take her in his arms, suddenly, at once. In
smother instant it would be too late, the action would
have lost the grace of spontaneous impulse. He won-
dered how you simulated a spontaneous impulse.

But Maisie made it all right for him. As he stood
waiting for his impulse she came to him and laid her
hands on his shoulders and kissed him, gently, on each
cheek. Her hands slid down; they pressed hard against
his arms above the elbow, as if to keep back his too
passionate embrace. It was easy enough to return her
kiss, to pass his arms xmder hers and press her slight
body, gently, with his cramped hands. Did she know
that his heart was not in it?

No. She knew nothing.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she
said. "You do look fit.''

"Do I? Oh, nothmg much."

206 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

He turned away from her sweet eyes that hurt him.

At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and
put cushions at her back, and pour out her tea and
wait on her. He tried by a number of careful, delib-
erate attentions to make up for his utter lack of spon-
taneity. And she sat there, drinking her tea, contented;
pleased to be back in her happy home; serenely un-
aware that anything was missing.

He took her over the house and showed her her
room, the long room with the two south windows, one
on each side of the square, cross-lighted bay above the
porch. It was full of the clear April light.

Maisie looked roimd, taking it all in, the privet-white
panels, the lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of
•Id rose damask. An armchair and a roimd table with
a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre of the bay.

''Is this mine, this heavenly room?'*

"I thought so."

He was glad that he had something beautiful to give
her, to make up.

She glanced at the inner door leading to his father's
room. "Is that yours in there?"

"Mine? No. That door's locked. It . . . I'm on
the other side next to Colin."

"Show me."

He took her into the gallery and showed her.

"It's that door over there at the end."

"What a long way off," she said.

"Why? You're not afraid, are you?"

"Dear me, no. Could anybody be afraid here?"

" Poor Colin's pretty jmnpy still. That's why I have
to be near him."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 207

"I see/'

"You won't mind having him with us, will you?"

''I shall love having him. Always. I hope he won't
mind i/ie."

"He'll adore you, of course."

"Now show me the garden."

They went out on to the green terraces where the
peacocks spread their great tails of yew, Maisie loved
the peacocks and the chpped yew walls and the gold-
fish pond and the flower garden.

He walked quickly, afraid to linger, afraid of having
to talk to her. He felt as if the least thing she said
would be charged with some xmendurable emotion and
that at any minute he might be called on to respond.
To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie;
but, everything having changed for him, he felt that
at any minute Maisie might begin to be unlike herself.

She was out of breath. She put her hand on his arm.
"Don't go so fast, Jerry. I want to look and look."

They went up on to the west terrace and stood there,
lookmg. Brown-crimson velvet wall-flowers grew m a
thick hedge imder the terrace wall; their hot sweet
smell came up to them.

"It's too beautiful for words," she said.

"I'm glad you like it. It is rather a jolly old place."

"It's the most adorable place I've ever been in. It
looks so good and happy. As if everybody who ever
lived in it had been good and happy."

"I don't know about that. It was a hospital for
four years. And it hasn't quite recovered yet. It's
aU a bit worn and shabby, I'm afraid."

"I don't care. I love its shabbinees. I don't want

208 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FBELDINGS

to forget what it's been. . . . To think that I've missed
seven weeks of it."

"You haven't missed much. We've had beastly
weather all March."

"I've missed you. Seven weeks of you."

"I think you'll get over that," he said, perversely.

"I shan't. It's left a horrid empty space. But I
couldn't help it. I really couldn't, Jerry."

"All right, Maisie, I'm sure you couldn't."

"Torquay was shnply horrible. And this is heaven.
Oh, Jerry dear, I'm going to be so awfully happy."

He looked at her with a sudden tenderness of pity.
She was visibly happy. He remembered that her
charm for him had been her habit of enjoyment. And
as he looked at her he saw nothing but sadness in her
happiness and in her sweetness and her beauty. But
the sadness was not in her, it was in his own soul.
Women like Maisie were made for men to be faithful to
them. And he had not been faithful to her. She was
made for love and he had not loved her. She was nothing
to him. Looking at her he was filled with pity for the
beauty and sweetness that were nothing to him. And
in that pity and that sadness he felt for the first time
the uneasy stirring of his soul.

If only he could have broken the physical tie that
had boimd him to her imtil now; if only they could
give it all up and fall back on some innocent, inmiaterial
relationship that meant no unfaithfulness to Anne.

When he thought of Anne he didn't know for the life
of him how he was going through with it.

t ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 209

u .

Maisie had been talking to him for some seconds
before he imderstood. At last he saw that, for reasons
which she was imable to make clear to him, she was
letting him oflf. He wouldn't have to go through with it;

As Jerrold's mind never foresaw anything he didn't
want to see, so in this matter of Maisie he had had no
plan. Not that he trusted to the inspiration of the
moment ; in its very nature the moment wouldn't have
an inspiration. He had simply refused to think about
it at all. It was too impleasant. But Maisie's presence
forced the problem on him with some violence. He
had given himself to Ame without a scruple, but when
it came to giving himself to Maisie his conscience devel-
oped a sudden sense of gmltmess. For Jerrold was
essentially faithful; only his fidelity was all for Anne.
His marrying Maisie had been a sin against Anne, its
sinfulness disguised because he had had no pleasure in
it. The thought of going back to Maisie after Anne
revolted him; the thought of Anne having to share
hiTTi with Maisie revolted him. Nobody, he said to
himself, was ever less polygamous than he.

At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't
want her to suffer, and if she was not to suffer she must
not know, and if she was not to know they must go
on as they had begun. He was haimted by the fear
of Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt
for her was poignant and accusing, as if somehow she
did know and suffer. She must at least be aware that
something was wanting. He would have to make up
to her somehow for what she had missed; he would
have to give her all the other things she wanted for

210 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made it
easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his
conviction that Maisie was cold, that she was incapable
of caring for him as Anne cared. His peace of mind
and the freedom of his conscience depended on this
belief. But; in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted
children. He knew that.

According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would
be an injury to Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne
would forgive him; she would imderstand; she wouldn't
want to hurt Maisie.

So he went through with it.
' And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he
was being let off. He wouldn't have to go on.

He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she
lay there. She had grasped his hands by the wrists,
as if to hold back their possible caress. And her little
breathless voice went on, catching itself up and tripping.

**You won't mind — if I don't let you — come to
me?"

*^ I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that
about it."

"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's
just my silly nerves. I get frightened."

"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother
you."

"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you
wouldn't imderstand and it would be too hard for you.
TftKit?"

"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly."

He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned,
decently renoimcing, not as thou^ he felt this blessed*

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 211

ness of relief; absolved from dread; mercifully and in-
credibly let off.

But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate;
it couldn't bear to hurt him. She held him tighter.
" Jerrold — if it w — if you can't stand it, you mustnH
mind about me. You must forget I ever said anything.
It's nothing but nerves.''

"I shall be all right. Don't worfy."

"You are a darling."

Her grasp slackened. 'Tlease — please go. At once.
Quick."

As he went she put her hand to her heart. She
could feel the pain coming. It filled her with an inde-
scribable dread. Every time it came she thought she
should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited;
excitement always brought it on. She held her breath
tight to keep it back.

Ah; it had come. Splinters of glasS; sharp splinters
of glasS; first pricking; then piercing, then tearing her
heart. Her heart closed down on the splinters of glass,
•cutting itself at every beat.

She looked imder the pillow for the little silver box
that held her pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always
had it with her; ready. She crushed a pearl in her
pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils. The
pain left her. She lay still.

m

And every Simday at six in the evening, or nine (he
varied the hour to escape suspicion), Jerrold came to
Aime.

In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's

212 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

happiness was perf ect, intense and secret like the bliss
of a saint in ecstasy^ of genius contemplating its fin-
ished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she had found
reaUty. She gave herself without shame and without
remorse^ or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran.
Their passion was too clean for fear or remorse or
shame. She thought love was a finer thing going free
and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound.
The game of love should be played with a high, defiant
courage; you were not fit to play it if you fretted and
cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an
extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never
vowed or protested or swore not to go back on it or on
each other. It was inconceivable that they should go
back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she
saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold;
there never had been a time when she had ceased to
love him. This moment when they embraced was only
the meeting point between what had been and what
would be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's con-
science but the sense that Jerrold didn't belong to her,
that he had no right to love her; and she had never had
that sense. They had belonged to each other, always,
from the time when they were children playing together.
Maisie was the intruder, who had no right, who had
taken what didn't beloi^ to her. And Anne could
have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse
of a great passion; but Maisie didn't care.

So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by think-
ing about Maisie. She had never seen Jerrold's wife;
she didn't want to see her. So long as she didn't see
her it was as if Maisie were not there.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 213

And yet she was there. Next to Jerrold she was
more there for Anne than the people she saw every
day. Maisie's presence made itself felt m all the risks
they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, ..
but to a continuous happiness. She was the reason
why they could only meet at intervals for one difficult
and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie, Jerrold, in-
stead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard
of consequences, had to think out the least revolting
ways by which they might evade them. He had to
set up some sort of screen for his Sunday visits to the
Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks
after dark on week-days and of impunctuaUty at meals.
To avoid being seen by the cottagers he approached the
house from behind, by the bridge over the mill-water
and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily
the estate provided him with an irreproachable and
permanent pretext for seeing Anne.

For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor
Farm, had conceived a profoimd passion for his seven
himdred acres. At last he had come into his inherit-
ance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how
to use it, so that he could never separate his love of
it from his love of her, the land had an interest of its
own that soon excited and absorbed him. He deter-
mined to take up farming seriously and look after his
estate himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne
would teach him all she knew, and he could finish up
with a year or two at the Agricultural College in Ciren-
cester. He had foxmd the work he most wanted to
do, the work he believed he could do best. All the
better if it brought him every day this irreproachable

214 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

companionship with Anne. His conscience was ap-
peased by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself
that the life he led now was the best possible life for a
sane man. His mind was clear and keen; his body was
splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his com-
panionship with her was perfect, their miderstanding
of each other was perfect. They would never be tired
of each other and never bored. He rode with her over
the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in
all weathers.

At times he would approach her through some sense,
sharper than sight or touch, that gave him her inmost
imm|gi,terial essence. She would be sitting quietly in a
room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be
thus aware of her. These moments had a reaUty and
certainty more poignant even than the moment of his
passion.

At last they ceased to think about their danger.
They felt, ironically, that they were protected by the
legend that made Aime and Colin lovers. In the eyes
of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife,
and the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold
was the stem guardian of his brother's morals. TJiey
were saying now that Captain Fielding had put a stop
to the whole disgraceful aflfair; he had forced Colin to
leave the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over
the estate in order to keep an eye on his brother and
Anne Severn.

Anne was not concerned with what they said. She
felt that Jerrold and she were safe so long as she didn't
know Maisie. It never struck her that Maisie would
want to know /ier, since nobody else did.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 215

iv

But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that
reason. One day she came to Jerrold with the visiting
cards.

"The Corbetts and Euwtreys have called. Shall I
like them?"

"I don't know. I won't have anything to do with
them."

"Why not?"

"Because of the beastly way theyVe behaved to
Anne Severn."

"What have they done?"

"Done? TheyVe been perfect swine. TheyVe cut
her for five years because she looked after Colin.
TheyVe said the filthiest things about her."

"What sort of things?"

"Why, that CoHn was her lover."

"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was
a saint."

"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her.
My mother left her all by herself here to take care of
him and she wouldn't leave him. She thought of
nothing but him."

"She must be a perfect angel."

"She is."

"But about these horrible people — what do you
want me to do?"

"Do what you like."

"7 don't want to know them. I'm thinking what
would be best for Anne."

"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she
was your friend."

216 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

^^But she %8 if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I
want her to be. • • • I think I'd better call on these
Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show them how
we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if
they aren't decent to her. It'll be far more telling
tlum if I began by being rude. . . . Only, Jerrold, how
absurd — I don't know Anne. She hasn't called yet."

"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know
her."

"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's
the very reason. Why, she's the only person here I
do want to know. I think I fell in love with the sound
of her when you first told me about her and how she
took care of Colin. We must do everything we can
to make up. We must have her here a lot and give
her a jolly time."

He looked at her.

"Maisie, you really are rather a darling."

"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be. . . .
Shan I go and see her or will you bring her?"

"I think — perhaps — I'd better bring her, first."

He spoke slowly, considering it.

Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea,
and in the evening he would walk back with her.

On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor
Farm. He found Anne upstairs in the big sitting-room.

"Oh Jerrold, darling,. I didn't think you'd come so
soon."

" Maisie sent me." •

"Maisie?"

For the first time in his knowledge of her Aime looked
frightened.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FDELDINGS 217 .

"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to
tea."

"But — it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't
want to. Can't you see how impossible it is?"

"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a
lot about you."

"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold — do you think
she guesses?" _

"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing
she'd think of. She's absolutely guileless."

"That makes it worse."

"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about
you. She's furious with these brutes here because
they've cut you. She says she'll cut tiiem if they won't
be decent to you."

"Oh, worse and worse!"

"You're afraid of her?"

" I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid."

"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of.
She's not a bit dangerous."

"Don't you see ^t that makes her dangerous, her
not being? You've told me a hundred times how sweet
she is. Well — I don't want to see how sweet she is."

"Her sweetness doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, noth-
ing 'U ever be the same again."

"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do.'
Think. If you don't, can't you see how it'll give the
show awqy? She'd wonder what on earth you meant
by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened.
This isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it? "

"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I

218 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

wouldn't mind if only we could be straight about it.
But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't bear it.
I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the
music."

_ *

"So would I. But we can't. . . . Look here, Anme.
We don't care a damn what people think. You wouldn't
care if we were foimd out to-morrow "

"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could
happen to us."

^'To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we
could marry. It would be all right for us. Not for
Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't you? "

"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I
needn't see her."

" Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want
you to."

"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell
you it won't be the same thing, afterwards, ever."

"I shall be the same, Anne. And you."

"Me? Iwonder."4

He rose, smiUng down at her.

"Come," he said. " Don't let's be late."

She went.

In the garden with Maisie, the long ^innocent con-
versation coming back and back; Maisie's sweetness
haunting her, known now and remembered. Maisie
walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips,
between the cUpped walls of yew, showing Anne her
flowers. She stooped to lift their faces, to caress them
with her little thin white fingers.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE JIELDINGS 219

"I don't know why I'm showing you round/' she
said; "you know it all much better than I do."

"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little.
I sort of lived here."

Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive.

''You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?"

**Yes. He was eight when I was five."

'*Do you remember what he was like?"

"Yes."

Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or
not, but as Anne stopped dead she went on herself.

"I wish 7'd known Jerry all the time like that. I
wish I remembered running about and playing with
him. . . . You were Jerrold's friend, weren't you?"

"And Eliot's and Colin's."

The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication.
And to this creature of palpable truth.

"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's
most. That's what makes me feel as if you were mine,
as if I'd known you quite a long time. You see, he's
told me things about you."

"Has he?"

Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make
it. If only Maisie would leave off talking about
Jerrold, making her he.

"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've
ever heard of. There are heaps of things I want to say
to you." She stooped to pick the last tulip of the
bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was
perfectly splendid of you the way you looked after
Colin. And the way you've looked after Jerry's land
for him."

220 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for
Jerrold, but it was my job, anyway."

"Well, you've saved Colin. And youVe saved the
land. What's more, I believe youVe saved Jerrold."

"How do you mean, * saved' him? I didn't know
he wanted saving."

"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care
about the estate. He didn't care a rap about it till he
came down here this last time. You've found his job
for him."

"He'd have found it himself all right without me."

"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about
him after the war. He was all at a loose end without
anything to do. And dreadfully restless. We thought
he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid
he'd want to live in London."

"I don't thmk he'd ever do that."

"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid
of this place."

"I know. After his father's death."

"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because
he's seen what you've done with it. I know he hadn't
the smallest idea of farming it before. It's what he
ought to have been doing all his life. And when you
think how seedy he was when he came down here, and
how fit he is now."

"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going."

Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear.

"Jerry '11 see you home. And you'll come again,
won't you? Soon. . . . Will you take them? I gath-
ered them for you,"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 221

''Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came
with a jerk. Her breath choked her.

Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking
for her. She said good-bye to Maisie and turned to go
with him home.

"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?"

"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only
worse."

He laughed. "Worse?"

"I mean she was sweeter. . . . Jerrold, she makes
me feel such a brute. Such an awful brute. And if
she ever knows "

"She won't know."

When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the
couch and cried.

All evening Maisie's tulips, stood up in the blue-and-
white Chinese bowl on the table. They had childlike,
innocent faces that reproached her. Nothmg would
ever be the same again.

XV

ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE

It was a Sunday in the middle of April.

Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday
and had brought Ehot back with him for the week-end.
Anne had come over as she always did on a Simday
afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the
terrace when EUot came to them^ walking with the
tired limp that Anne found piteous and adorable. Very
soon Maisie murmured some gentle, uninteUigible ex-
cuse, and left them.

There was a moment of silence in which everything
they had ever said to each other was present to them,
making all other speech unnecessary, as if they held a
long intimate conversation. EUot sat very still, not
looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the
passing of those unuttered words. Then Anne spoke
and her voice broke up his mood.

"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?"

"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for,
the germ of trench fever.''

"You mean you have."

"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't.
A lot of us were out for it."

"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp
out the disease, doesn't it? "

222

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 223

"Probably. In time."

"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something
big before you'd finished."

'* My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing
big about it but the research, and we were all in that.
All looking for the same thing. Happening to spot it
is just heaven's own luck."

"But aren't you glad it was you?"

"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm
glad. It's the sort of thing I wanted to do and it's
rather more important than most things one does."

He said no more. Years ago, when he had done
nothing, he had talked excitedly and arrogantly about
his work; now that he had done what he had set out
to do he was reserved, impassive and very hmnble.

"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said.

"Not yet. You're the first."

"Dear Eliot, you did know I'd be glad."

"It's nice of you to care."

Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he
had that supreme satisfaction to make up for the cruelty
of her refusal to care more. Perhaps, she thought, he
wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He would
have been torn in two; he would have had to give
himself twice over. She felt that he didn't love her
more than he loved his science, and science exacted an
uninterrupted and undivided service. One life hadn't
room enough for two such loves, and he might not have
done so much if she had been there, calling back his
thoughts, drawing his passion to herself.

"What are you going to do next?" she said.

"Next I'm going oflf for a month's holiday. To

4

224 ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS

Sicily — Taormina. I've been overworking and Vm %
bit run down. How about Colin?"

^' He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that
relapse he had when I was away in February."

"You mean he got over it when you came back."

"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just
what I don't like about him, Eliot. He's getting de-
pendent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish he could
go away somewhere for a change. A long change.
Away from me, away from the farm, away from Wyck,
somewhere where he hasn't been before. It might cure
him, mightn't it?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying."

He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going
to say. She said it.

"Eliot — do you think you could take him with you?
Could you stand the strain?"

"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be
able to stand it for a month."

"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a
bit of trouble when he's well. He's adorable. Only —
perhaps — if you're run down you oughtn't to."

"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you
say he ought to get away from you, and I wanted you
to come too."

"Me?"

"You and Maisie and Jerrold."

"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm."

"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that.
Don't you ever get away?"

" Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEBLDINOS 225

three be away at once. But it's awfully nice of you to
think of it."

'^I didn't. It was Maisie."

Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and
Maisie's sweetness and kindness, breaking her down?

"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go."

"Why should she be?"

"Because she wants you to."

"Maisie?"

"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?"

"I was afraid she was beginning to — "

"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't
you like fterf "

"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once
b^in I shall end by loving her."

"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do."

"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know . . .
Here she is."

Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved
with an unresisting grace, a dehcate bowing of her head
and swaying of her body, and breathless as if she went
against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and limped
away from them.

"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said.

"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with
you "

"You're coming, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Why ever not?"

"I can't leavp the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold
and Colin aren't here."

"Oh, bother the old land! You must leave it. It

226 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

can get on without you for a month or two. Nothing
much can happen in that time."

^'Ohy can't it! Things can happen in a day if you
aren't there to see that they don't.'' •

"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But
he'll mind awfully if you don't come, So shall I.
Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back with Eliot
in time for the hay harvest, and you and^I and Colin
are to go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and
mother are joining us at Como in June. We shall
be there a month and come home through Switzerland.'^

"It would be heavenly, but I cism't do it. I can't,
really, Maisie." She was thinking: He'll be back for
the hay harvest.

"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our
pleasing like that. Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's.
And mine. I never dreamed of your not coming."

"Do you mean you really want me?"

"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't
be the same thing at all without you. I want to see
you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do it so well.
I beUeve I want to see that more tSkn Taomnna and
the Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come."

"Maisie — why are you such an angel to me?"

"I'm not. I want you to come because — oh because
I want you. Because I like you. I'm happy when
you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say you
care more for the land than Jerrold and me."

"I don't. I It isn't the land altogether. It's

Colin. I want him to get away from me for a time
and do without me. It's frightfully importantVtiiS^ he
should get away."

t^j

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 227

"We could send' Colin to another part of the island
with Eliot. Only that wouldn't be very kind to Eliot."

"No, It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere
when you've come back."

"But that's no good to us. Jerrold will be here for
the haying, if you're thinking of that."

"I'm no^ thinking of that. I'm thinking of CoUn."

As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lyingto
Maisie. Lying for the first time. That came oj^jpow- \
ing Maisie; it came of Maisie's sweetness. Sh6%)idd .
have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin no¥^ ,
she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the ha^v fpf^,
harvest and Maisie went on with CoUn to the Italian
Lakes, she would have her lover to herself; they would
be alone together all Jime. She would lie in his arms, • "
not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night
after night, from long before midnight till the dawn.

For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne
^and Colin had slept out of doors in wooden belters
set up in the Manor fields, away from the noises of the
farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from
Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's
shelter had been moved up from the field to the Manor ^
garden. In the smnmer Anne would sleep again in her
Inciter. The path to her field from the Manor garden
lay through three pastures and two strips of fir planta-
tion with a green drive between.

Jerrold would come to her there. He would have
his bed in Colin's shelter in the garden, and when the
nighty was quiet he would get up and go down the
Infields and through the fir plantation to her
^at the bottom. They would lie there in each

228 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

other's anns, utterly safe, hidden from passing feet and
listening ears, and eyes that watched behind window
panes.

And as she thought of his coming to her, and heaid
her own voice lying to Maisie, the blood mounted to
her face, flooding it to the roots of her hair.

"I'm thinking of Colin."

Her voice kept on sounding loud and dreadf id in ha
brain, while Maisie's voice floated across it, faint, as
if it came from somewhere a long way off.

"You never think of yourself. You're too good for
anything, Anne."

She woidd never be safe from Maisie and Maisie's
innocence that accused, reproached and threatened her.
Maisie's sweetness went through her like a thrusting
sword, like a sharp poison; it had words that cut deeper
than threats, reproaches, accusations. Before she had
seen Maisie she had been fearless, pitiless, remorseless;
now, because of Maisie, she would never be safe from
remorse and pity and fear.

She recovered. She told herself that she hadn't lied;
that she had been thinking of Colin; that she had
thought of him first; that she had refused to go to
Taormina before she knew that Jerrold was coming
back for the hay harvest. She couldn't help it if she
knew that now. It was not as if she had schemed for
it or counted on it. She had never for one moment
coimted on anything or schemed. And still, as she
thought of Jerrold, her heart tightened on the sharp
^sword-thrust of remorse.

Because of Maisie, nothing would ever be the same
again.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 229

« -

u

ta the last week of April they had gone, Jerrold and
Maisie, Eliot and Colin, to Taonnina. In the last week
in May Jerrold and Eliot took Maisie up to Como
on their way home. They found Sir Charles and Lady
Durham there waiting for her. They had left Colin by
himself at Taormina.

From the first moment of landing Colin had fallen
in love with Sicily and refused to be taken away from
it. He was aware that his recovery was now in his
own hands, and that he would not be free from his
malady so long as he was afraid to be alone. He had
got to break himself of his habit of dependence on other
people. And here in Taormina he had come upon the
place that he could bear to be alone in. There was
freedom in his siurender to its enchantment and in the
contemplation of its beauty there was peace. And with
peace and freedom he had found his indestructible self;
he had come to the end of its long injury.

One day, sitting out on the balcony of his hotel, he
wrote to Anne.

"Don't imagine because IVe got well here away
from you that it wasn't you who made me well. In the
first place, I should never have gone away if you hadn't
made me go. You knew what you were about when
you sent me here. I know now what Jerrold meant
when he wanted to get away by himself after Father
died. He said he wanted to grow a new memory.
Well, that's what I've done here.

"It seemed to happen all at once. One day I'd left
them all and gone out for a walk by myself. It came
over me that between me and being well, perfectly

230 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

well, there was nothing but myself, that I was really
hangmg on to my illness for some sort of protection
that it gave me, just as I'd hung on to you. I'd been
thinking about it all the time, filling my mind with my
illness, hanging on to the very fear of it; to save myself,
I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself. And
suddenly, out there, I let go. And the beauty of the
place got me. I can't describe the beauty, except that
there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, a clear
gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming
over everything Uke gold water. I seemed to remember
it as if I'd been here before, a long, steady memory, not
just a flash. It was like finding something you'd lost,
or when a musical phrase you've been looking for sud-
denly comes back to you. It was the most utter, in-
describable peace and satisfaction. And somehow this
time joined on to the times at Wyck when we were all
there and happy together; and the beastly time in
between slipped through. It just dropped out, as if it
had never happened, and I got a sense of having done
with it forever. I can't tell you what it was like. But
I think it means I'm well.

"And then, on the top of it all, I remembered you,
Anne, and all your goodness and sweetness. I got right
away from my beastly self and saw you as you are.
iVnd I knew what you'd done for me. I don't believe
I ever knew, really knew, before. I had to be alone
with myself before I could see it, just as I always had
to be alone with my music before I could get it right.
I've never thanked you properly. I can't thank you.
There aren't any words to do it in. And I only know
now what it's cost you. • • •"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 231

Did he know? Did he know that it had once cost
her Jerrold?

"... For instance, I know you gave up coming here
with us because you thought it would be better for me
without you.'^

Colin, too, timiing it in her heart, the sharp blade
of remorse. Would they never have done pimishing
her?

And then: "Maisie knows what you are. She told
Eliot you were the most beautiful thing, morally, she
had ever known. The one person, she said, whose
motives would always be clean."

If he had tried he couldn't have hit on anything that
would have hurt her so. It was more than she could
bear to be punished like this through the innocence of
innocent people, through their kindness and affection,
their beUef , then- incorruptible trust in her. There was
nothing in the world she dreaded more than Maisie's
trust. It was as if she foresaw what it would do to her,
how at any minute it would beat her, it would break
her down.

But she was not beaten yet, not broken down. After
every fit of remorse her passion asserted itself again in
a superb recovery. Her motives might not be so spot-
less as they looked to Maisie, but her passion itself was
clean as fire. Nothing, not even Maisie's innocence,
Maisie's trust in her, could make her go back on it.
Hard, wounding tears cut through her eyelids as she
thought of Maisie, but she brushed them away and
began counting the days till Jerrold should come back.

232 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

•••

m

He came back the first week in June, in time for the
hay harvest. And it happened as she had foreseen.

It would have been dangerous for Jerrold to have
left the house at night to go to the Manor Farm. At
any moment he might have been betrayed by his own
footsteps treading the passages and stairs, by the slip-
ping of locks and bolts, the sound of the opening and
shutting of doors. The servants might be awake and
hear him; they might go to his room and find that he
was not there.

But Colin's shelter stood in a recess on the lawn,
open to the fields and hidden from the house by tall
hedges of yew. Nobody could see him slip out into
the moonlight or the darkness; nobody could hear the
soft padding of his feet on the grass. He had only to
run down the three fields and cross the belt of firs to
come to Anne's shelter at the bottom. The blank, pro-
jecting wall of the mill hid it from the cottages and
the Manor Farm house; the firs hid it from the field
path; a high bank, topped by a stone wall, hid it from
the road and Sutton's Farm. Its three wooden walls
held them safe.

Night after night, between eleven and midnight, he
came to her. Night after night, she lay awake waiting
till the light rustling of the meadow grass told her he
was there: on moonlit nights a quick brushing sound;
in the thick blackness a sound like a slow shearing as
he felt his way. The moon would show him clear, as
he stood in the open frame of the shelter, looking in at
her; or she would see him grey, twilit and mysterious;

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 233

or looming, darker than dark, on black nights without
moon or stars.

They loved the clear nights when their bodies showed *
to each other white under the white moon; they loved
the dark nights that brought them close, shutting them
in, annihilating every sensation but that of his tense,
hard muscles pressing down, of her body crushed and
yielding, tightening and slackening m surrender; of
their brains swimming m their dark ecstasy.

They loved the warmth of each other's bodies in the
hot windless nights; they loved their smooth, clean
coolness washed by the night wind. Nothing, not even
the sweet, haunting ghost of Maisie, came between.
They would fall asleep in each other's arms and lie
there till dawn, till Anne woke m a sudden fright.
Always she had this fear that some day they would
sleep on mto the mommg, when the farm people would
be up and about. Jerrold lay still, tired out with
satisfaction, sunk under all the floors of sleep. She had
to drag him up, with kisses first and light stroking,
then with a strong xmdoing of their embrace, pushing
back his heavy arms that fell again to her breast as
she parted them. Then she would wrench herself loose
and shake him by the shoulders till she woke him. He
woke clean, with no ugly turning and yawning, but
with a great stretchmg of his strong body and a short,
sudden laugh, the laugh he had for danger. Then he
would look at his wrist watch and show it her, laughing
again as she saw that this time, again, they were safe.
And they would lie a little while longer, looking into
each other's faces for the sheer joy of looking, reckless -
with impimity. And he would start up suddenly with,

234 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

''I say, Anne, I must clear out or we shall be caught."
And they would get up. ! *r

Outside, the world looked young and unknown in the
June dawn, in the still, clear, gold-crystal air, where
green leaves and green grass shone with a strange, hard
lustre like fresh paint, and yet unearthly, uncreated,
fixed in theu- own space and tune.

And she would go with him, her naked feet shining
white on the queer, bright, cold green of the grass, up
the field to the belt of firs that stood up, strange and
eternal, under the risen sun.

They parted there, holding each other for a last kiss,
a last clinging, as if never in this world they would
meet again.

Dawn after dawn. They belonged to the dawn and
the dawn light; the dawn was their day; they knew
it as they knew no other time.

And Anne would go back to her shelter, and lie
there, and live through their passion again in memory,
till she fell asleep.

And when she woke she would find the sweet, sad
ghost of Maisie haunting her, coming between her and
the memory of her dark ecstasy. Maisie, utterly inno-
cent, utterly good, trusting her, sending Jerrold back to
her because she trusted her. Only to think of Maisie
gave her a fearful sense of insecurity. She thought : If
I'd loved her I could never have done it. If I were to
love her even now that would end it. We couldn't go
on. She prayed God that she might not love her.

By day the hard work of the farm stopped her
thinking. And the next night and the next dawn
brought back her safety.

\

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 235

iv

The hay harvest was over by the last week of June,
and in the first week of July Maisie had come back.

Maisie or no Maisie, the work of the farm had to go
on; and Anne felt more than ever that it justified her.
When the day of reckoning came, if it ever did come,
let her be judged by her work. Because of her love
for Jerrold here was this big estate held together, and
kept going; because of his love for her here was Jerrold,
growing into a perfect farmer and a perfect landlord;
because of her he had found the one thing he was best
fitted to do; because of him she herself was valuable.
Anne brought to her work on the land a thoroughness
that aimed continually at perfection. She watched the
starting of every tractor-plough and driller as it broke
fresh ground, to see that machines and men were work-
ing at their highest pitch of efficiency. She demanded
efficiency, and, on the whole, she got it; she gave it
by a sort of contagion. She wrung out of the land the
very utmost it was capable of yielding; she saw that
there was no waste of straw or hay, of grain or fer-
tilizers; and she knew how to take risks, spending big
sums on implements and stock wherever she saw a good
chance of a return.

Jerrold learned from her this perfection. Her work
stood clear for the whole countryside to see. Nobody
could say she had not done well by the land. When
she first took on the Manor Farm it had stood only in
the second class ; in four years she had raised it to the
fij^t. It was now one of the best cultivated estates in
the county and famous for its prize stock. Sir John
Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, and

236 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

Major Markham of Wyck Wold owned to an admira-
tion for Anne Severn's management. Her morals^ they
said, might be a trifle shady, but her farming was above
reproach. More reluctantly they admitted th^t ^e
had made something of that young rotter, CJolin, even
while they supposed that he had been sent abroad to
keep him out of Anne Severn's way. They also sup-
posed that as soon as he could do it decently Jerrold
would get rid of Anne.

Then two things happened. In July Maisie Fielding
came back and was seen driving about the country
with Anne Severn; and in the same month old Sutton
died and the Barrow Farm was let to Anne, thus estab-
lishing her permanence.

Anne had refused to take it from Jerrold as his gift.
He had pressed her persistently.

"You might, Anne. It's the only thing I can give
you. And what is it? A scrubby two hundred acres."

"It's a thundering lot of land, Jerrold. I can't take
it."

"You must. It isn't enough, after all you've done
for us. I'd like to give you everything I've got; Wyck
Manor and the whole blessed estate to the last tiunip,
and every cow and pig. But I can't do that. And you
used to sajr you wanted the Barrow Farm."

"I wanted to rent it, Jerry darling. I can't let you
give it me."

"Why not? I think it's simply beastly of you not
to."

At that point Maisie had passed through the room
with her flowers and he had called to her to help him.

"What are you two quarreling about?" she said.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 237

"Why, I want to give her the Barrow Farm and she
won't let me."

"Of course I won't let him, A whole farm. How
could I?"

"I think you might, Anne. It would please him no
end.''

"She thinks," Jerrold said, "she can go on doing
things for us, but we mustn't do anything for her.
And I say it's beastly of her."

"It is really, Anne darling. It's selfish. He wants
to give it you so awfully. He won't be happy if you
won't take it."

"But a farm, a whole thumping farm. It's a big
house and two hundred acres. How can I take a thing
like that? You couldn't yourself if you were me."

Maisie's little white fingers flickered over the blue
delphiniimis stacked in the blue-and-white Chinese jar.
Her mauve-blue eyes were smiling at Anne over the
tops of the tall blue spires.

"Don't you want to make him happy?" she said.

"Not that way."

"If it's the only way ?"

She passed out of the room, still smiling, to gather
more flowers. They looked at each other.

''Jerrold, I can't stand it when she says things like
that."

"No more can I. But you know, she really does
want you to take that farm."

"Don't you see why I can't take it — from yout
It's because we're lovers."

"I should have thought that made it easier."

"It makes it impossible. I've given myself to you.

238 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS *

I can't take anything. Besides, it would look as if I'd
taken it for that." » *^'

"That's an appalling idea, Anne."

"It is. But it's what everybody'U thmk. They'll
wonder what on earth you did it for. We don't want
people wondering about us. If they once begin won-
dering they'll end by finding out."

"I see. Perhaps you're right. I'm sorry."

"It sticks out of us enough as it is. I can't think
how Maisie doesn't see it. But she never will. She'll
never believe that we "

"Do you want her to see it?"

"No, but it hurts so, her not seeing. . . • Jerrold, I
believe that's the punishment — Maisie's trusting us.
It's the worst thing she could have done to us."

"Then, if we're pimished we're quits. Don't think
of it, Anne darling. Don't let Maisie come in between
us Uke that."

He took her in his arms and kissed her, close and
quick, so that no thought could come between.

But Maisie's sweetness had not done its worst. She"
had yet to prove what she was and what she could do.

July passed and August; the harvest was over. And
in September Jerrold went up to London to stay with
EUot for the week-end, and Anne stayed with Maisie,
because Maisie didn't like being left in the big house
by herself. Through all those weeks that was the way
Maisie had her, through her need of her.

And on the Thursday before Anne came Maisie had
called on Mrs. Hawtrey of Medlicote, and Mrs. Haw-

:> ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 239

trey had asked her to lunch with her on the following
Monday. Maisie said she was afraid she couldn't lunch
on Monday because Anne Severn would be with her,
and Mrs. Hawtrey said she was very sorry, but she
was afraid she couldn't ask Anne Severn.

And Maisie enquired in her tender voice, "Why not? "

And Mrs. Hawtrey replied, "Because, my dear, no-
bckly here does ask Anne Severn."

Maisie said again, "Why not?"

Then Mrs. Hawtrey said she didn't want to go into
it, the whole thing was so unpleasant, but nobody did
call on Anne Severn. She was too well known.

And at that Maisie rose in her fragUe dignity and
said that nobody knew Anne Severn so well as she and
her husband did, and that there was nobody in the
world so absolutely good as Anne, and that she couldn't
possibly know anybody who refused to know her, and
so left Mrs. Hawtrey.

The evening Jerrold came home, Maisie, flushed with
pleasure, entertained him with a report of the encounter.
' "So you've given an ultimatum to the comity."

"Yes. I told you I'd cut them all if they went on
cutting Anne. And now they know it."

"That means that you won't know anybody, Maisie.
Except for Anne and me you'll be absolutely alone
here."

"I don't care. I don't want anybody but you and
Anne. And if I do we can ask somebody down. There
are lots of amusing people who'd come. And Eliot can
bring his scientific crowd. It simply means that Cor-
betts and Hawtreys won't*be asked to meet them,
that's aU."

240 ANNE SEVERN AND THE JIELDINGS

She went upstairs to lie down before dinner, and
presently Anne came to him in the drawing-rooni. She
was dressed in her riding coat and breeches as she had
come off the land.

"What do you think Maisie's done now?*' he said.

''I don't know. Something that'll make me fed
awful, I suppose."

"If you're going to take it like that I won't tell you."

"Yes. Tell me. Tell me. I'd rather know.'*

He told her as Maisie had told him.

" Can't you see her, standing up to the whole coimty?
Pounding them with her Uttle hands."

His vision of the gentle thing, rising up in that sud-
den sacred fury of protection, moved him to admiring,
tender laughter. It made Anne burst into tears.

"Oh, Jerrold, that's the worst that's happened yet. -
Everybody'll cut her, because of me."

" Bless you, she won't care. She says she doesn't care
about anybody but you and me."

"But that's the awful thing, her caring. That's the
punishment. The punishment."

Again he took her in his arms and comforted her.

"What am I to do, Jerry? What am I to do?"

"Go to her," he said, "and say something nice."

"Go to her and take my punishment?"

"Well, yes, darling, I'm afraid you've got to take it.
We can't have it both ways. It wouldn't be a punish-
ment if you weren't so sweet, if you didn't mind so. I
wish to God I'd never told you."

She held her head high.

"I made you. I'm glad you told me."

She went up to Maisie in her room.' Maisie bad

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 241

dressed for dinner and lay on her couch, lookmg ex-
quisite and fragile in a gown of thick white lace. She
gave a little soft cry as Anne came to her.

"Anne, youVe been crying. What is it, darling?"

"Nothing. Only Jerrold told me what you'd done."

"Done?"

"Yes, for me. Why did you do it, Maisie?"

"Why? I suppose it was because I love you. It
was the least I could do."

She held out her hands to her. Anne knelt down,
crouching on the floor beside her, with her face hidden
against Maisie's body. Maisie put her arm round her.

" But why are you crying about it, Anne? You never
cry. I can't bear it. It's like seeing Jerrold cry."

"It's because you're so good, so good, and I'm such
a brute. You don't know what a brute I am."

"Oh yes, I know."

"Do you?" she said, sharply. For one moment she
thought that Maisie did indeed know, know and under-
stand so perfectly that she forgave. This was forgive-
ness.

"Of course I do. And so does Jerrold. He knows
what a brute you are."

It was not foi^veness. It was Maisie's innocence
again, her trust — the punishment. Anne knelt there
and took the pain of it.

vi

She lay awake, alone in her shelter. She had given
the excuse of a racking headache to keep Jerrold from
coming to her. For that she had had to lie. But what
was her whole existence but a lie? A lie told by her

242. ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS

silence under Maisie's trust in her, by her acceptance
of Maisie's friendship, by her acquiescence in Maisie's
preposterous belief. Every minute that she let Maisie
go on loving and trusting and believing in her she lied.

And the appalling thing was that she couldn't be
alone in her lying. So long as Maisie trusted him
Jerrold lied, too — Jerrold, who was truth itsdf • One
moment she thought: That's what I've brougiht him
to. That's how I've dragged him down. The next she
saw that reproach as the very madness of her conscience.
She had not dragged Jerrold down; she had raised him
to his highest intensity of loving, she had brou^t him, '
out of the illusion of his life with Maisie, to reality
and kept him there in an immaculate faithfulness. Ndfc
even for one insane moment did Anne admit that there
was anything wrong or shameful in thdr passion itsdf •
It was Maisie's innocence that made them liars,
Maisie's goodness that put them in the wrong and
brought shame on them, her truth that falsified them.

No woman less exquisite in goodness could have
moved her to this incredible remorse. It took the
whole of Maisie, in her imique perfection, to beat her
and break her down. Her first instinct in refusing to
know Maisie had been profoundly right. It was as if
she had foreseen, even then, that knowing Maisie would
mean loving her, and that, loving her, she would be
beaten and broken down. The awful thing was that
she did love Maisie; and she couldn't tell which was
the worse to bear, her love for Maisie or Maisie's love
for her. And who could have foreseen the pain of it?
When she prayed that she might take the whole pun-
ishment, she had not reckoned on this refinement and

ANNE SBTBRN AND THE FIELDINGS 243

precision of torture. God knew what he was about.
With all his resources he couldn't have hit on anything
more delicately calculated to hurt. Nothing less subtle
would have touched her. Not discovery; notthegross-
ness of exposure; but this intolerable security. What
could discovery and exposiu^ do but set her free in
her reality? Anne would have rejoiced to see her Ue go
up in one purifying flame of revelation. But to go
safe in her lie, hiding her realityi and yet defenceless
under the sting of Maisie's loving, was more than she
could bear. She had brought all her truth and all her
fineness to this passion which Maisie's innocence made '
a sin, and she was punished where she had smned,
wounded by the subtle God in her fineness and her
truth. If only Jerrold could have escaped, but he was
vulnerable, too; there was fineness and truth in him.
To suffer really he had to be wounded in his soul.

If Jerrold was hurt then they must end it.

As yet he had given no sign of feeling; but that was
like him. Up to the last minute he would fight against
feeling, and when it came he would refuse to own thai
he suffered, that there was any cause for suffering. It
would be like the time when his father was dying,
when he refused to see that he was dying. So he would
refuse to see Maisie and then, all at once, he would
see her and he would be beaten and broken down.

vu

And suddenly he did see her.

It was on the first Synday after Jerrold's return.
Maisie had had another of her heart attacks, by herself,
in her bed, the night before; and she had been lying

244 ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS

down all day. The sun had come round on to the
terrace, and she now rested there, wrapped in a fur
coat and leaning back on her cushions in the garden
chair.

They were sitting out there, all three, Jerrold and
Anne talking together, and Maisie listening with hef
sweet, attentive eyes. Suddenly she shut her eyes and
ceased to listen. Jerrold and Anne went on taUdng-
with hushed voices, and in a little while Maisie was
asleep.

Her head, rising out of the brown fur, was tilted back
on the cushions, showing her innocent white throat;
her white violet eyeUds were shut down on her eyes,
the dark lashes lying still; her mouth, utterly mnocent,
was half open; her breath came through it unevenly, in
light jerks.

"She's asleep, Jerrold."

They sat still, making no sound.

And as she looked at Maisie sleeping, tears came
again into Anne's eyes, the hard tears that cut her
eyeUds and spilled themselves, drop by slow drop,
heavily. She tried to wipe them away secretly with her
hand before Jerrold saw them; but they came again
and again and he had seen. He had risen to his feet
as if he would go, then checked himself and stood
beside her; and together they looked on at Maisie's
sleeping; they felt together the infinite anguish, the
mfinite pathos of her goodness and her trust. The |
beauty of her spirit lay bare to them in the white,
tilted face, slackened and smoothed with sleep. Sleep
showed them her innocence again, naked and helpless.
They saw her in her poignant being, her intense reality.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 245

She was so real that m that moment nothing else mat-
tered to them.

Anne set her teeth hard to keep her mouth still.
She saw Jerrold glance at her, she heard him give a
soft groan of pity or of pain; then he moved away
from them and stood by the terrace wall with his back
to her. She saw his clenched hands^ and through his
terrible, tense quietness she knew by the quivering of
his shoulders that his breast heaved. Then she saw
him grasp the terrace wall and grind the edge of it into
the palms of his hands. That was how he had stood
by his father's deathbed, gripping the foot-rail; and
when presently he turned and came to her she saw the
look on his face she had seen then, of young, blind
agony, sharpened now with some more piercing spiritual
pain.

"Come,'' he said, "come into the house."
They went together, side by side, as they had gone
when they were children, along the terrace and down
the steps into the drive. In the shelter of the hall she
gave way and cried, openly and helplessly, like a child,
and he put his arm round her and led her into the
library, away from the place where Maisie was. They
sat together on the couch, holding each other's hands,
clinging together in their suffering, their memory of
what Maisie had made their sin. Even so they had
sat in Anne's room, on the edge of Anne's bed, when
they were children, holding each other's hands, miser-
able and yet glad because they were brought together,
because what they had done and what they had borne
they had done and borne together. And now as then
he comforted her.

246 ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS

"Don't cry, Anne darling; it isn't your fault. I
made you."

" You didn't. You didn't. I wanted you and I made
you come to me. And I knew what it would be like
and you didn't."

"Nobody could have known. Don't go back on it."

"I'm not going back on it. If only I'd never seen
Maisie — then I wouldn't have cared. We could have
gone on."

"Do you mean we can't now?"

"Yes. How can we when she's such an angel to us
and trusts us so?"

"It does make it pretty beastly," he said.

"It makes me feel absolutely rotten."

"So it does me, when I think about it."

"It's knowing her, Jerry. It's having to love her,
and knowing that she loves me; it's knowing what she
is. . . . Why did you make me see her?"

"You know why."

"Yes. Because it made it safer. That's the beastli-
ness of it. I knew how it would be. I knew she'd
beat us in the end — with her goodness."

"Darling, it isnH your fault."

"It is. It's all my fault. I'm not going back on it.
I'd do it again to-morrow if it weren't for Maisie. Even
•- now I don't know whether it's right or wrong. I only
know it's the most real and valuable part of me that
loves you, and it's the most real and valuable part of
you that loves me; and I feel somehow that that makes
it right. I'd go on with it if it made you happy. But
you aren't happy now."

"I'm not happy because you're not. I don't mind

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 247

for myself so much. Only I hate the beastly way we've
got to do it. Covering it all up and pretending that
we're not lovers. Deceiving her. That's what makes
it all wrong. Hiding it."

"I know. And I made you do that."

"You didn't. We did it for Maisie. Anyhow, we
must stop it. We can't go on like this any n^ore. We
must simply tell her."

"TeKher?"

"Yes; tell her, and get her to divorce me, so that I
can marry you. It's the only straight thing."

"How can we? It would hurt her so awfully."

"Not so much as you think. Remember, she doesn't
care for me. She's not like you, Anne. She's fright-
fully cold."

As he said it there came to her a sudden awful inti-
mation of reality, a sense that behind all their words,
all the piled-up protection of their outward thinking,
there hid an unknown certainty, a certainty that would
wreck them if they knew it. It was safer not to know,
to go on hiding behind those piled-up barriers of
thought. But an inward, ultimate honesty drove her
to her questioning.

"Are you sure she's cold?"

"Absolutely sure. You go on thinking all the time
that she's like you, that she takes things as hard as
you do; but she doesn't. She doesn't feel as you do.
It won't hurt her as it would hurt you if I left you for
somebody else."

"But — it'U hurt her."

"It's better to hurt her a little now than to go on
humbugging and shamming till she finds out. That

248 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

would hurt her damnably. She'd hate our not being
straight with her. But if we tell her the truth she'll
understand. I'm certain she'll understand and she'll
forgive you. She can't be hard on you for caring for
me."

"Even if she doesn't care?"

"She cares for yow," he said.

She couldn't push it from her, that importunate sense
of a certainty that was not his certainty. If Maisie
did care for him Jerrold wouldn't see it. He never saw
what he didn't want to see.

"Supposing she does care all the time? How do you
know she doesn't?"

"I don't thmk I can tell you."

"But I must know, Jerrold. It makes all the dif-
ference."

" It makes none to me, Anne. I'd want you whether
Maisie cared for me or not. But she doesn't."

"If I thought she didn't — then — then I shouldn't
mind her knowing. Why are you so certain? You
might tell me."

Then he told her.

After all, that sense of hidden certainty was an
illusion.

"When was that, Jerrold?"

"Oh, a night or two after she came down here in
April. She didn't know, poor darling, how she let me
off."

"April — September. And she's stuck to it?"

"Oh — stuck to it. Rather."

"And before that?"

"Before that we were all right."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 249

"And she'd been away, too."

"Yes. Ages. That made it all the funnier."

"I wish you'd told me before."

"I wish I had, if it makes you happier."

"It does. Still, we can't go on, Jerrold, till she
knows."

"Of coiu'se we can't. It's too awful. I'll tell her.
And we'll go away somewhere while she's divorcing
me, and stay away till I can marry you. . . . It'll be
all different when we've got away."

"When you've told her. We ought to have told her
long ago, before it happened."

"Yes. But now — what the devil am I to tell her? "

He saw, as if for the first time, what telling her would
mean.

"Tell her the truth. The whole truth."

"How can I — when it's youf"

"It's because it is me that you've got to tell her. If
you don't, Jerrold, I'll tell her myself."

"All right. I'll tell her at once and get it over. I'll
tell her tonight."

"No. Not tonight, while she's so tired. Wait till
she's rested."

And Jerrold waited.

XVI

ANNE, MAISIE, AND JEBBOLD

1

Jebrold waited, and Maisie got her truth m first.

It was on the Wednesday, a fine bright day in Sep-
tember, and Jerrold was to have driven Maisie and
Anne over to Oxford in the car. And, ten minutes
before starting, Maisie had declared herself too tired to
go. Anne wouldn't go without her, and Jerrold, rather
sulky, had set off by himself. He couldn't understand
Maisie's sudden fits of fatigue when there was nothing
the matter with her. He thought her capricious and
hysterical. She was ackjuiring his mother's perverse
habit of upsetting your engagements at the last mo-
ment; and lately she had been particularly tiresome
about motoring. Either they were going too fast or
too far, or the wind was too strong; and he would have
to turn back, or hold himself in and go slowly. And
the next time she would refuse to go at all for fear of
spoiling their pleasure. She liked it better when Anne
drove her.

And today Jerrold was annoyed with Maisie because
of Anne. If it hadn't been for Maisie, Anne would
have been with him, enjoying a day's hoUday for once.
Really, Maisie might have thought of Anne and Anne's
pleasiure. It wasn't like her not to think of other
people. Yet he owned that she hadn't wanted Anne

250

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 251

to stay with her. He could hear her pathetic voice
imploring Anne to go "because Jerry won't like it if
you don't." Also he knew that if Anne was determined
not to do a thing nothing you could say would^make
her do it.

He had had time to think about it as he sat in the
loimge of the hotel at Oxford waiting for the friends
who were to lunch with him. And suddenly his annoy-
ance had turned to pity.

It^was no wonder if Maisie was hysterical. His life
with her was all wrong, all horribly unnatural. She
ought to have had children. Or he ought never to
have married her. It had been all wrong from the
beginning. Perhaps she had been aware that there was
something missing. Perhaps not. Maisie had seemed
always singularly unaware. That was because she
didn't care for him. Perhaps, if he had loved her
passionately she would have cared more. Perhaps not.
Maisie was inciu*ably cold. She shrank from the slight^
est gesture of approach; she was afraid of any emotion.
She was one of those unhappy women who are bom
with an aversion from warm contacts, who cannot give
themselves. What puzzled him was the imion of such
a temperament with Maisie's sweetness and her charm.
He had noticed that other men adored her. He knew
that if it had not been for Anne he might have adored
her, too. And again he wondered whether it would
have made any difference to Maisie if he had.

He thought not. She was happy, as it was, in her
gentle, unexcited way. Happy and at peace. Giving
happiness and peace, if peace were what you wanted.
It was that happiness and peace of Maisie's that had

%«

252 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

drawn him to her when he gave Anne up three years
ago.

And agam he couldn't understand this combination
of hysteria and perfect peace. He couldn't understand
Maisie.

Perhaps, after all, she had got what she had wanted.
She wouldn't have been happy and at peace if she had
been married to some brute who would have had no
pity, who would have insisted on his rights. Scmie
faithful brute; or some brute no more faithful to her
than he, who had been faithful only to Anne.

As he thought of Anne darkness came down over his
brain. His mind struggled through it, looking for the
light.

The entrance of his friends cut short his struggling.

u

Maisie lay on the couch in the library, and Anne sat
with her. Maisie's eyes had been closed, but now they
had opened, and Anne saw them looking at her and
smiling.

"You are a darling, Anne; but I wish you'd gone
with Jerrold."

"I don't. I wouldn't have liked it a bit."

*'He would, though."

"Not when he thought of you left here all by your-
self."

Maisie smiled again.

"Jerry doesn't think, thank Goodness."

"Why 'thank Goodness'?"

"Because I don't want him to. I don't want him
to see."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE flELDINGS 253

"To see what?"

"Why, that I can't do thmgs like other people."

"Maiaie — why can't you? You used to. Jerrold's
told me how you used to rush about, dancmg and
golfing and playing tennis."

"Why? Did he say anything?" ^

"Only that you took a lot of exercise, and he thinks
it's awfully bad for you knocking it all off now."

"Dear old Jerry. Of course he must think it fright-
fully stupid. But I can't help it, Anne. I can't do
things now like I used to. I've got to be careful."

"But — why?"

"Because there's something wrong with my heart.
Jerry doesn't know it. I don't want him to Imow."

"You don't mean seriously wrong?"

"Not very serious. But it hurts."

"Hurts?"

"Yes. And the pain frightens me. Every time it
oomes I think I'm going to die. But I don't die."

"Oh — Maisie — what sort of pain?"

"A disgusting pain, Anne. As if it was full of splin-
tered glass, mixed up with bubbling blood, cutting and
tearing. It grabs at you and you choke; you feel as
if your face would burst. You're afraid to breathe for
fear it should come again."

"But, Maisie, that's angina."

"It isn't real angina; but it's awful, all the same.
Oh, Anne, what must the real thing be like?"

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Yes, two. A man in London and a man in Tor-
quay."

"Do they say it isn't the real thing?"

264 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Yes. It's all nerves. But it's every bit as bad as
if it was real, except that I can't die of it."

"Poor little Maisie — I didn't know."

"I didn't mean you to know. But I had to tdl
somebody. It's so awful being by yourself with it and
being frightened. And then I'm afraid all the time d
Jerrold finding out. I'm afraid of his seeing me when
it comes on."

"But, Maisie darling, he ought to know. You ought
to tell him."

"No. I haven't told my father and mother because
they'd tell him. Luckily it's only come on in the night,
so that he hasn't seen. But it might come on anywhere,
any minute. If I'm excited or anything. . . . That's
the awful thing, Anne; I'm afraid of getting excited.
I'm afraid to feel. I'm afraid of everything that makes
me feel. I'm afraid of Jerrold's touching me, even of
his saymg something nice to me. The least thing
makes my silly heart tumble about, and if it timibles
too much the pain comes. I daren't let Jerrold sleep
with me."

"Yet you haven't told him."

"No; I daren't."

"You must tell him, Maisie."

"I won't. He'd mind horribly. He'd be frightened
and miserable, and I can't bear him to be frightened
and miserable. He's had enough. He's been through
the war. I don't mean that that frightened him; but
this would."

"Do you mean to say he doesn't see it?"

"Bless you, no. He just thinks I'm tiresome and
hysterical. I'd rather he thought that than see him

ANNE [SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 255

unhappy. Nothing in the world matters but Jerrold.
You see I care for him so frightfully. . . . You don't
know how awful it is, caring like that, and yet having
to beat him back all the time, never to give him any-
thing. I daren't let him come near me because of that
ghastly fright. I know you oughtn't to be afraid of
pain, but it's a pain that makes you afraid. Being
afraid's all part of it. So I can't help it."

"Of course you can't help it."

"I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for Jerry. I ought
never to have married him."

"But, Maisie, I can't understand it. You're always
so happy and calm. How can you be ealm and happy
with thai hanging over you?"

"I've got to be calm for fear of it. And I'm happy
because Jerrold's there. Simply knowing that he's
there. ... I can't think what I'd do, Anne, if he
wasn't such an angel. Some men wouldn't be. They
wouldn't stand it. And that makes me care all the
more. He'll never know how I care."

"You must teU him."

"There it is. I daren't even try to tell him. I just
live in perpetual funk."

"And you're the bravest thing that ever lived."

"Oh, I've got to cover it up. It wouldn't do to show
it. But I'm glad I've told you."

She leaned back, panting.

"I mustn't talk — any more now."

"No. Rest."

"You won't mind? . . . But — get a book — and
read. You'll be — so bored."

She shut her eyes.

266 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

Anne got a book and tried to read it; but the words
ran together^ grey lines tangled on a white page.
Nothing was clear to her but the fact that Maisie had
told the truth about herself.

It was th^ worst thing that had happened yet.
It was the supreme reproach, the ultimate disaster and
defeat. Yet Maisie had not told her anything that
surprised her. Thib ^as the certainty that hid behind
the defences of their thought, the certainty she had
foreseen when JeitOld told her about Maisie's coldness.
It meant that Jerrold couldn't escape, and that his
pimishment would be even worse than hers. Nothing
that Maisie could have done would have been more
terrible to Jerrold than her illness and the way she
had hidden it from him; the poor darling going in
terror of it, lymg m bed alone, night after night, shut
in with her terror. Jerrold was utterly vulnerable; his
beUef in Maisie's mdifference had been his only pro-
tection against remorse. How was he going to bear
Maisie's wounding love? How would he take the
knowledge of it?

Anne saw what must come of his knowing. It would
be the end of their happiness. After this they would
have to give each other up ; he would never take her in
his arms again; he would never come to her again in
the fields between midnight and dawn. They couldn't
go on imless they told Maisie the truth; and they
couldn't tell Maisie the truth npw, because the truth
would bring the pain back to her poor little heart.
They could never be straight with her; they would have
to hide what they had done for ever. Maisie had
silenced them for ever when she got her truth in first.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 257

To Anne it was not thinkable, either that they
should go on being lovers, knowing about Maisie, or
that she should keep her knowledge to herself. She
would tell Jerrold and end it.

•••
m

She stayed on with Maisie till the evening.

Jerrold had come back and v^^iJiuwalking home with
her through the Manor fields when she made up her
Hpnd that she would tell him now; at the next gate —
the next — when they came to the belt of firs she
would tell him.

She stopped him there by the fence of the plantation.
The darkness hid them from each other, only their
faces and Anne's white coat glimmered through.

''Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you some-
thing. About Maisie."

He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the
sudden start and check of his hurt mind.

"You haven't told her?'' he said.

"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want
you to know. But you've got to know it. You think
she doesn't care for you, and she does; she cares awfully.
But — she's ill."

"111? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is.
I know Maisie."

"You don't know that she gets heart attacks.
Frightful pam, Jerrold, pam that terrifies her."

"My God — you don't mean she's got angina f*

"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead.
But pain so bad that she thinks she's dying every
time. It's what they call false angina. That's why

258 ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS

she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll
come on and you'll see her."

Through the darkness she could feel the vibration
of his shock; it came to her in his stillness.

'^ You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel becaiase
feeling brings it on."

He spoke at last. '^Why on earth couldn't she tell
me that?"

"Because she loves you so awfully. The poor darling
di^p't want you to be imhappy about her."

"As if that mattered."

"It matters more than anything to her."

"Do you really mean that she's got that hellish
thing? W^o told her what it was?"

"Somie London doctor and a man at Torquay."

"I shaU take her up to-morrow and make her see a
specialist."

"If you do you mustn't let her know I told you, or
she'll never tell me anything again."

"What am I to say?"

"Say you've been worried about her."

"God knows I ought to have been."

"You're worried about her, and you think there's
something wrong. If she says there isn't, you'll say
that's what you want to be sure of."

"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the
real thing?"

"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart.
I don't suppose for a moment it's the real thing. She
wouldn't be aUve if it was. And you don't die of false
angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin."

He was silent for a second.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 269

"Anne — she's beaten us. We can't tell her now."

"No. And we can't go on. If we can't be straight
about it we've got to give each other up."

" I know. We can't go on. There's nothing more to'
be said."

His voice dropped on her aching heart with the tone-
less weight of finality.

"We've got to end it now, this minute/' she said.
** Don't come any farther."

"Let me go to the bottom of the field."

"No. I'm not going that way."

He had come close to her now, close, as though he
would have taken her in his arms for the last night,
the last time. He wanted to touch her, to hold her
back from the swallowing darkness. But she moved
out of his reach and he did not follow her. His passion
was ready to flame up if he touched her, and he was
afraid. They must end it clean, without a word or a
touch.

The grass drive between the firs led to a gate on the
hill road that skirted the Manor fields. He knew that
she would go from him that way, because she didn't
want to pass by their shelter at the bottom. She
couldn't sleep in it tonight.

He stood still and watched her go, her white coat
glimmering in the darkness between the black rows of
firs. The white gate glinmiered at the end of the drive.
She stood there a moment. He saw her slip like a white
ghost between the gate and the gate post; he heard
the light thud of the wooden latch falling back behind
her, and she was gone.

v:

xvn

JERROLD, MAI8IE, ANNE, ELIOT

Maisie lay in bed, helpless and abandoned to her
iUness. It was no good trying to cover it up and hide
it any more. Jerrold knew.

The night when he left Anne he had gone up to
Maisie in her room. He couldn't rest unless he
knew that she was all right. He had stooped over her
to kiss her and she had sat up, holding her face to him,
her hands clasped round his neck, drawing him close
to her, when suddenly the pain gripped her and she
lay back in his arms, choking, struggling for breath.

Jerrold thought she was dying. He waited till the
pain passed and she was quieted, then he ran down-
stairs and telephoned for Ransome. He looked on in
agony while Ransome's stethescope wandered over
Maisie's thin breast and back. It seemed to him that
Ransome was taking an unusually long time about it,
that he must be on the track of some terrible discovery.
And when Ransome took the tubes from his ears and
said, curtly, " Heart quite sound ; nothing wrong there,"
he was convinced that Ransome was an old fool who
didn't know his business. Or else he was lying for
Maisie's sake.

Downstaks m the library he turned on him.

''Look here; there's no good lying to me. I want
the truth."

260

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 361

''My dear Fieldixig, I shouldn't dream of lying to
you. There's nothing wrong with your wife's heart.
Nothing organically wrong."

''With that pam? She was in agony, Ransome,
agony. Why can't you tell me at once that it's angina? "

"Because it isn't. Not the real thing. False angUia's
a neurosis, not a heart disease. Get the nervous con-
dition cured and she'll be all right. Has she had any
worry? Any shock?"

"Not that I know."

"Any cause for worry?"

He hesitated. Poor Maisie had had cause enough if
she had known. But she didn't know. It seemed to
him that Ransome was looking at him queerly.

"No," he said. "None."

"You're quite certain? Has she ever had any?"

"Well, I suppose she was pretty jumpy all the time
I was at the front."

"Before that? Years ago?"

"That I don't know. I should say not."

"You won't swear?"

"No. I won't swear. It would be years before wc
were married."

"Try and find out," said Ransome. "And keep her
quiet and happy. She'd better stay in bed for a week
or two."

So Maisie stayed in bed, and Jerrold and Anne sat
with her, together or in turn. (|[e had a bed made up
in her room and slept there when lie slept at all. But
half the night he lay awake, listening for the soxmd of
her panting and the little gasping cry that would come

282 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

1

when the pain got her. He kept on getting up to look
at her and make sure that she was sleeping.

He was changed from his old happy, careless self,
the self that used to tium from any trouble, that refused
to believe that the people it loved could be ill and die.
He was convinced that Maisie's state was dangerous.
He sent for Dr. Harper of Cheltenham and for a nerve
specialist and a heart speciaUst from London and they
all told him the same thing. And he wouldn't believe
them. Because Maisie's death was the most unbear-
able thing that his remorse could imagine, he felt that
nothing short of Maisie's death would appease the
powers that punished him. He was the more certain
that Maisie would die because he had denied that she
was ill. For Jerrold's mind remembered everything
and anticipated nothing. like most men who refuse
to see or foresee trouble, he was crushed by it when it
came.

The remorse he felt might have been less intolerable
if he had been alone in it; but, day after day, his pain
was intensified by the sight of Anne's pain. She was
exquisitely vulnerable, and for every pang that stabbed
her he felt himself- responsible. What they had done
they had done together, and they suffered for it to-
9 gether, but in the beginning she had done it for him,
and he had made her do it. Nobody, not even Maisie,
could have been more innocent than Anne. He had
no doubt that, left to herself, she would have hidden
her passion from him to the end of time. He, there-
fore, was the cause of h^ suffering.

It was as if Anne's consciousness were transferred to
him, day after day, when they sat together in Maisie's

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS 263

room, one on each side of her bed, while Maisie lay
between them, sleeping her helpless and reproachful
sleep, and he saw Anne's piteous face, white with pain.
His pity for Maisie and his pity for Anne, their pity
for each other were mixed together and held them, close
as passion, in an unbearable communion.

They looked at each other, and their wounded eyes
said, day after day, the same thing: ''Yes, it hurts.
But I could bear it if it were not for you." Their pity
took the place of passion. It was as if a part of each
other passed into them with their suffering as it had
passed into them with their joy.

a.

u

And through it all their passion itself still lived its
inextinguishable and tortured life. Pity, so far from
destroying it, only made it stronger, pouring in its own
emotion, wave after wave, swelling the flood that car-
ried them towards the warm darkness where will and
thought would cease.

And as Jerrold's soul had once stirred in the warm
darkness under the first stinging of remorse, so now it
pushed and struggled to be bom; all his will fought
against the darkness to deliver his soul. His soul knew
that Anne saved it. If her will had been weaker his
would not have been so strong. At this moment an
unscrupulous Anne might have danmed him to the
sensual hell by clinging to his pity. He would have
sinned because he was sorry for her.

But Anne's will refused his pity. When he showed
it she was angry. Yet it was there, waiting for her
always, against her will. i

264 ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS

One day in October (Maisie's illness lasting on into
the autimm) they had gone out into the garden to
breathe the cold, clean air while Maisie slept.

'^Jerrold/' she said, suddenly, ''do you think she
knows?"

"No. I'm certain she doesn't."

'' I'm not. I've an awful feeling that she knows and
that's why she doesn't get better."

''I don't think so. If she knew she'd have said
something or done something."

'' She mightn't. She mightn't do anything. Perhaps
she's just being angelically good to us."

''She is angelically good. But she doesn't know.
You forget her illness began before there 'Waa anything
to know. It isn't the sort of thing she'd think of. If
somebody told her she wouldn't believe it. She trusts
us absolutely. . . . That's bad enough, Anne, without
her knowing."

"Yes. It's bad enough. It's worse, really."

"I know it is. . . . Anne — I'm awfully sorry to
have let you in for all this misery."

"You mustn't be sorry. You haven't let me in for
it. Nobody could have known it would have happened.
It wouldn't, if Maisie had been different. We wouldn't
have bothered then. Nothing would have mattered.
Think how gloriously happy we^ were. All my life all
my happiness has come through you or because of you.
We'd be happy still if it wasn't for Maisie."

"I don't see how we're to go on like this. I can't
stand it when you're not happy. And nothing makes
any difference, really. I want you so awfully all the
time."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 265

^'That's one of the things we mustn't say to each
other."

"I know we mustn't. Only I didn't want you to
think I didn't."

"I don't think it. I know you'll care for me as long
as you live. Only you mustn't say so. You mustn't
be sorry for me. It makes me feel all weak and soft
when I want to be strong and hard."

"You are strong, Anne."

"So are you. I shouldn't love you if you weren't.
But we mustn't make it too hard for each other. You
know what'U happen if we do?"

"What? You mean we'd crumple up and give in?"

"No. But we couldn't ever see each other alone
again. Never see each other again at all, perhaps. I'd
have to go away."

"You shan't have to. I swear I won't say another
word."

"Sometimes I think it would be easier for you if I
went."

"It wouldn't. It would be simply damnable. You
can't go, Anne. That w(nM make Maisie think."

• ••
m

After weeks of rest Maisie passed into a period of
painless tranquillity. She had no longer any fear of her
illness because she had no longer any fear of Jerrold's
knowing about it. He did know, and yet her world
stood firm round her, firmer than when he had not
known. For she had now in Jerrold's ceaseless devotion
what seemed to her the absolute proof that he cared
for her, if she had ever doubted it. And if he had

266 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

doubted her^ hadn't he the absolute proof that she
cared, desperately? Would she have so hidden the
truth from him, would she have borne her pain and
the fear of it, in that awful lonely secrecy, if she had
not cared for him more than for anything on earth?
She had been more afraid to sleep alone than poor
CoUn who had waked them with his screaming. Jerrold
knew that she was not a brave woman like Anne or
Colin's wife, Queenie; it was out of her love for him
that she had drawn the courage that made her face,
night after night, the horror of her torment alone. If
he had wanted proof, what better proof could he have
than that?

So Maisie remained tranquil, secure in her love for
Jerrold, and in his love for her, while Anne and Jerrold
were tortured by their love for each other. They were
no longer sustained in thek renunciation by the sight of
Maisie's illness and the fear of it which more than any-
thing had held back t^eir passion. Without that warn-
ing fear they were exposed at every turn. It might be
there, waiting for them in the background, but, with
Maisie going about as if nothing had happened, even
remorse had lost its protective poignancy. They suf-
fered the strain of perpetual frustration. They were
never alone together now. They had passed from each
other, beyond all contact of spirit with spirit and flesh
with flesh, beyond all words and looks of longing; they
had nothing of each other but sight, sight that had all
the violence of touch without its satisfaction, that
served only to excite them, to tortiure them with desire.
They might be held at arm's length, at a room's length,
at a field's length apart, but their eyes drew them to-

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 267

gether, set their hearts beating; in one moment of
seeing they were joined and put asunder.

And, day after day, their minds desired each other
with a subtle, incessant, intensely conscious longing,
and were utterly cut off from all communion. They
met now at longer and longer intervals, for their work
separated them. Colin had come home in October,
perfectly recovered, and he and Jerrold managed the
Manor estate together while Anne looked after her own
farm. Jerrold never saw her, he never tried to see her
unless Colin or Maisie or some of the farm people were
present; he was afraid and Anne knew that he was
afraid. Her sense of his danger made her feel herself
fragile and unstable. She, too, avoided eveiy occasion
of seeing him alone.

And this separation, so far from saving them, de-
feated its own end. Every day it brought them nearer -
to the breaking point. It was against all nature and
all nature was against it. They had always before
them that vision of the point at which they would give
in. Always there was one thought that drew them to
the edge of surrender: "I can bear it for myself, but
I can't bear it for him," "I can bear it for myself, but
I can't bear it for her."

And to both of them had come another fear, greater
than their dread of Maisie's pain, the fear of each
other's illness. Their splendid physical health was be-
ginning to break down. They worked harder than ever
on the land; but hard work exhausted them at the
end of the day. They went on from a sense of duty,
dull and implacable, but they had no more pleasure in ^
it. Anne became every night more restless, every day

268 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

more tired and ansemic. Jerrold ate less and slept
less. They grew thin, and their faces took on the same
look of fatigue and anxiety and wonder, as if, more
than anything, they were amazed at a world whose
being connived at and tolerated their pain.

Maisie saw it and felt the first vague disturbance of
her peace. Her illness had worried everybody while it
lasted, but she couldn't think why, when she was well
again, Anne and Jerrold should go on looking like that.
Maisie thought it was physical; the poor dears worked
too hard.

The change had been so gradual that she saw it
without consternation, but when Eliot came down in
November he couldn't hide his distress. To Eliot the
significant thing was not Anne's illness or Jerrold's ill-
ness but the likeness in their illnesses, the likeness in
their faces. It was clear that they suffered together,
with the same suffering, from the same cause. And
when on his last evening Jerrold took .^ into the
library to consult him about Maisie's case, Eliot had a
hard, straight talk with him about his own.

"My dear Jerrold," he said, "there's nothing seri-
ously wrong with Maisie. I've examined her heart. It
isn't a particularly strong heart, but there's no disease
in it. If you took her to all the specialists in Europe
they'd tell you the same thing."

"I know, but I keep on worrying."

"That, my dear chap, is because you're ill yourself.
I don't like it. I'm not bothered about Maisie, but I
am bothered about you and Anne."

"Anne? Do you thmk Anne's ill?"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS 269

"I think she will be, and so will you if . . . What
have you been doing?"

"WeVe been doing nothing/'

'^ That's it. You've got to do something and do it
pretty quick if it's to be any good."

Jerrold started and looked up. He wondered whether
Eliot knew. He had a way of getting at things, you
couldn't tell how.

" What d'you mean? What are you talking about? "
His words came with a sudden sharp rapidity.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't know how you know anything. And, as a
matter of fact, you don't."

"I don't know much. But I Icnow enough to see
that you two can't go on like this."

"Maisieand me?"

"No. You and Anne. It's Anne I'm talking about.
I suppose you can make a mess of your own life if you
like. You've no business to make a mess of hers."

"My God! as if I didn't know it. What the devil
am I to do?"

"Leave her alone, Jerrold, if you can't have her."

" Leave her alone? I am leaving her alone. I've got
to leave her alone, if we both die of it."

"She ought to go away," Eliot said.

"She shan't go away unless I go with her. And I
can't."

"Well, then, it's an impossible situation."

"It's a damnable situation, but it's the only decent
one. You forget there's Maisie."

"No, I don't. Maisie doesn't know?"

"Oh Lord, no. And she never will."

270 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"You ought to tell her."

Jerrold was silent.

"My dear Jerrold, it's the only sensible thing. Tell
her straight and get her to divorce you.*'

"I was going to. Then she got ill and I couldn't."

"She isn't iU now."

"She wiU be if I tell her. It'll shnply kill her."

"It won't. It may — even — cure her."

"It'll make her frightfully unhappy. And it'll bring
back that infernal pain. If you'd seen her, Eliot, you'd
know how impossible it is. We simply can't be swine.
And if I could, Anne couldn't. . . . No. We've got to
stick it somehow, Anne and I."

"It's all wrong, Jerrold."

"I know it's all wrong. But it's the best we can do.
You don't suppose Anne would be happy if we did
Maisie down."

"No. No. She wouldn't. You're right there. But
it's a danmable business."

"Oh, damnable, yes."

Jerrold laughed in his agony. Yet he saw, as if he
had never seen it before, Eliot's goodness and the sad-
ness and beauty of his love for Anne. He had borne
for years what Jerrold was bearing now, and Anne had
not loved him. He had never known for one moment
the bliss of love or any joy. He had had nothing. And
Jerrold remembered with a pang of contrition that he
kad never cared enough for Eliot. It had always been
Colin, the young, breakable Colin, who had clung to
him and foUowed him. Eliot had always gone his own
queer way, keeping himself apart.

ft

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 271

And now Eliot was nearer to him than anything in
the world, except Anne.
I'm sorry, Jerrold."

You're pretty decent, Eliot, to be sorry — I believe
you honestly want me to have Anne."

^'I wouldn't go so far as that, old man. But I
believe I honestly want Anne to have you. ... I say,
she hasn't gone yet, has she?"

"No. Maisie's keeping her for dinner in your honour.
You'll probably find her in the drawing-room now."

"Where's Maisie?"

"She won't worry you. She's gone to lie down."

Eliot went into the drawing-room and f oimd Anne
there.

She looked at him. ' ' You've been talking to Jerrold,"
she said.

"Yes, Anne. I'm worried about him."

"So am I."

"And I'm worried about you."

"And he's worried about Maisie."

"Yes. I suppose he began by not seeing she was
ill, and now he does see it he thinks she's going to die.
I've been trying to explain to him that she isn't."

"Can you explain why she's got into this state? It's
not as if she wasn't happy. She is happy."

" She wasn't always happy. Jerrold must have made
her suffer damnably."

"When?"

"Oh, long before he married her." ^

•^But how did he make her suffer?"

"Oh, by just not marrying her. She found out he
didn't care for her. Her people took her out to India,

272 ANNE SEVEBN AND THE FIELDINGS

I believe, with the idea that he would marry her. And
when they saw that Jerry wasn't on in that act they
sent her back again. Poor Maisie got it well rammed
into her then that he didn't care for her, and the
idea's stuck. It's left a sort of wound in her memory."

''But she must have thought he cared for her when
he did marry her. She thinks he cares now."

''Of coiu-se she thinks it. I don't suppose he's ever
let her see."

"I know he hasn't."

"But the wound's there, all the same. She's never
got over it, though she isn't conscious of it now. The
fact remains that Maisie's marriage is incomplete be-
cause Jerry doesn't care for her. Part of Maisie, the
adorable part we know, isn't aware of any incomplete-
ness; it lives in a perpetual illusion. But the part we
don't know, the hidden, secret part of her, is aware of
nothing else. . . .'Well, her illness is simply camou-
flage for that. Maisie's mind couldn't bear the reality,
so it escaped into a neurosis. Maisie's behaving as
though she wasn't married, so that her mind can say
to itself that her marriage is incomplete because she's
ill, not because Jerry doesn't care for her. It's substi-
tuted a bearable situation for an unbearable one."

"Then, you don't think she fcnotosf "

"That Jerrold doesn't care for her? No. Only in
that unconscious way. Her mind remembers and she
doesn't."

"I mean, she doesn't know about Jerrold and me?"

"I'm sure she doesn't. If she did she'd do soniS^
thmg."

" That's what Jerrold said. What would she do? "

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 273

^'Oh something beautiful, or it wouldn't be Maisie.
She'd let Jerrold go/'

"Yes. She'd let him go. And she'd die of it."

"Oh no, she wouldn't. I told Jerrold just now it
might cure her."

"How could it cure her?"

"By making her face reality. By making her see
that her illness simply means that she hasn't faced it.
All our neuroses come because we daren't live with the
truth."

"It's no good making Maisie well if we make her
unhappy. Besides, I don't believe it. If Maisie's un-
happy shell be worse, not better."

"There is just that risk," he said. "But it's you
I'm thinking about, not Maisie. You see, I don't know
what's happened."

"Jerrold didn't tell you?"

"He only told me what I know already."

"After fidl, what do you know?"

" I know you were all right, you and he, when I saw
you together here in the spnng. So I suppose you were
happy then. Jerrold looked wretchedly ill all the time
he was at Taormina. So I suppose he was unhappy then
because he was away from you. He looks wretchedly ill
now. So do you. So I suppose you're both unhappy."

"Yes, we're both unhappy."

"Do you want to tell me about it, Anne?"

"No. I don't want to tell you about it. Only, if I
thought you still wanted to marry me "

"I do want to marry you. I shall always want to
marry you. I told you long ago nothing would ever
make any difference."

274 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Even if ?"

" Even if Whatever you did or didn't do I'd still

want you. But I told you — don't you remember? —
that you could never do anything dishonourable or
cruel."

"And I told you I wasn't sure."

"And I am sure. That's enough for me. I don't
want to know anything more. I don't want to know
anything you'd rather I didn't know."

"Oh, Eliot, you are so good. You're good like
Maisie. Don't worry about Jerry and me. We'll see
it through somehow."

"And if you can't stand the strain of it?"

"But I can."

"And if he can't? If you want to be safe "

"I told you I should never want to be safe."

"If you want him to be safe, then, would you marry
me?"

"That's different. I don't know, Eliot, but I don't
think so."

He went away with a faint hope. She had said it
would be different; what she would never do for him
she might do for Jerrold.

She might, after all, marry him to keep Jerrold safe.

Nothing made any difference. Whatever Anne did
she would still be Anne. And it was Anne he loved.
And, after all, what did he know about her and Jerrold? •
Only that if they had been lovers that would account
for their strange happiness seven months ago; if they
had given each other up this would account for their
unhappiness now. He thou^t: How they must have
struggled.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE WELDINGS 276

Perhaps, some day, when the whole story was told
and Anne was tired of struggling, she would oome to
him and he would marry her.

Even if

xvin

JERROLD AND ANNE

The Barrow Farm house, long, low and grey, stood
back behind the tall elms and turned its blank north
gable end to the road and the Manor Farm. Its nine I
mullioned windows looked down the field to the river. \
And the great bams were piled behind it, long roof-
trees, steep, mouse-coloured slopes and peaks above
grey walls.

Anne didn't move into the Barrow Farm house all
at once. She had to wait while Jerrold had the place
made beautiful for her.

This was the only thing that roused him to any
^interest. Through aU his misery he could stiU find
i pleasure in the work of throwing small rooms into one
I to make more space for Anne, and putting windows
into the south gable to give her the sun.

Anne's garden absorbed him more than his own seven
hundred acres. Maisie and he planned it together,
walking round the rank flower-beds, and bald wastes
scratched up by the hens.

There was to be a flagged court on one side and a
grass plot on the other, with a flower garden between.
Here, Maisie said, there should be great clumps of lark-
spurs and there a lavender hedge. They said how nice
it would be for Anne to watch the garden grow.

276

ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS 277

^'He's going to make it so beautiful that you'll want
to stay in it forever," she said.

And Anne went with them and listened to them, and
told them they were angels, and pretended to be excited
about her house and garden, while all the time her
heart ached and she was too tired to care.

The house was finished by the end of November and
Jerrold and Maisie helped her to furnish it. Maisie sent
to London for patterns and brought them to Anne to
choose. Maisie thought perhaps the chintz with the cream
and pink roses, or the one with the green leaves and red
tulips and blue and purple clematis was the prettiest.
Anne tried to behave as if all her happiness depended on
a pattern, and ended by choosing the one that Maisie
liked best. And the furniture went where Maisie thought
it should go, because Anne was too tired to care.
Besides, she was busy on her farm. Old Sutton in his
decadence had let most of his arable land run to waste,
and Anne's job was to make good soil again out of bad.

Maisie was pleased like a child and excited with her
planning. Her idea was that Anne should come in
from her work on the land and find the house all ready
for her, everything in its place, chairs and sofas dressed
in their gay suits of chintz, the books on their shelves,
the blue-and-white china in rows on the oak dresser.

Tea was set out on the gate-legged table before the
wide hearth-place. The lamps were lit. A big fire
burned. Colin and Jerrold and Maisie were there
waiting for h^. And Anne came in out of the fields,
tired and white and thin, her black hair drooping. Her
rough land dress hxmg slack on her slender body.

Jerrold looked at her. Anne's tired face, trying to

278 ANiiE SEVERN AND THE FDELDINQS

smile, wrung his heart. So did ttie happiness in
Maisie's eyes. And Anne's voice trying to sound as if
she were happy.

^'You darlings! How nice youVe made it."

"Do you like it?''

Maisie was breathless with joy.

"I love it. I adore it! But — aren't there lots of
things that weren't here before? Where did that table
come from?"

"From the Manor FamL Don't you remember it?
That's Eliot."

"And the bureau, and the dresser, and those heavenly
rugs?"

"That's Jerrold."

And the china was Colin, and the chinti was Midsie.
The long couch for Anne to lie down on was Maide.
Everything that was not Anne!s they had given her.

"You shouldn't have done it," she said.

"We did it for ourselves. To keep you with us,"
said Maisie.

"Did you thmk it would take all that?"

She wondered whether they saw how hard she was
trying to look happy, not to be too tired to care.

Then Maisie took her upstairs to show her her bed-
room and the white bathroom. Colin carried the lamp.
He left them together in Anne's room. Maisie turned
to her there.

" Darling, how tired you look. Are you too tired to
be happy?"

"I'd be a brute if I weren't happy," Anne said.

But she wasn't happy. The minute they were gone
•^ her sadness came upon her, crushing h^ down. She

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 27»

could hear Colin and Maisie, the two innocent ones,
lau^iing out into the darkness. She saw again Jer-
rold's hard, unhappy face trying to smile; his mouth
jerking in the tight, difficult smile that was like an
agony. And it used to be Jerrold who was always
happy, who went laughing.

She turned up and down the beautiful lighted room;
she looked again and again at the things they had given
her, Colin and Jerrold and Maisie.

Maisie. She would have to live with the cruelty of
Maisie's gifts, with Maisie's wounding kindness and
her innocence. Maisie's curtains, Maisie's couch, cov-
ered with flowers that smiled at her, gay on the white
ground. She thought of the other house, of the cur-
tains that had shut out the light from her and Jerrold,
of the couch where she had lain in his arms. Each
object had a dumb but poignant life that reminded and
reproached her.

This was the scene where her life was to be cast.
Henceforth these things would know her in her desola-
tion. Jerrold would never come to her here as he had
come to the Manor Farm house; they would never sit
together talking by this fireside; those curtains would
never be drawn on their passion ; he would never go up to
that lamp and put it out; she would never lie here wait-
ing, thrilling, as he came to her through the darkness.

She had wanted the Barrow Farm and she had got
what she had wanted, and she had got it too late. She
loved it. Yet how was it possible to love the place that
she was to be so unhappy in? She ought to hate it
with its enclosing walls, its bright-eyed, watching fur-
niture, its air of quiet complicity in her pain.

;280 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

She drew back the curtains. The lamp and its yel-
low flame hxmg out there on the darkness of the fields.
The fields dropped away through the darkness to the
river, and there were the black masses of the trees.

There the earth waited for her. Out there was the
only life left for her to live. The life of struggling with
the earth, forcing the earth to yield to her more than
it had yielded to the men who had tilled it before her,
making the bad land good. Ploughing time would
come and seed time, and hay harvest and com harvest.
Feeding time and milking time would come. She
would go on seeing the same things done at the same
hour, at the same season, day after day and year after
year. There would have been joy in that if it had been
Jerrold's land, if she could have gone on working for
Jerrold and with Jerrold. And if she had not been so
tired.

She was only twenty-nine and Jerrold was only
thirty-two. She wondered how many more ploughing
times they would have to go through, how many seed
times and harvests. And how would they go through
them? Would they go on getting more and more tired,
or would something happen?"

No. Nothing would happen. Nothing that they
could bear to think of. They would just go on.

In the stillness of the house she could feel her heart
beating, measuring out time, measuring out her pain.

u

That winter Adeline and John Severn came down to
Wyck Manor for Christmas and the New Year.
Adeline was sitting in the drawing-room with Maisie

ANNE SEVERN AND THE HELDINGS 281

in the heavy hour before tea time. All afternoon she
had been trjdng to talk to Maisie, and she was now
bored. Jerrold's wife had always bored her. She
couldn't imagine why Jerrold had married her when it
was so clear that he was not in love with her.

"It's fimny," she said at last, "staying in your own
house when it isn't your own any more."

Maisie hoped that Adeline would treat the house as
if it were her own.

"I probably shall. Don't be surprised if you hear
me giving orders to the servants. I really cannot con-
sider that Wilkins belongs to anybody but me."

Maisie hoped that Adeline wouldn't consider that he
didn't.

And there was a pause. Adeline looked at the clock
and saw that there was still another half-hour till tea
time. How could they possibly fill it in? Then, sud-
denly, from a thought of Jerrold so incredibly married
to Maisie, Adeline's mind wandered to Anne.

"Is Anne dining here tonight?" she said.

And Maisie said yes, she thought Adeline and Mr.
Severn would like to see as much as possible of Anne.
And Adeline said that was very kind of Maisie, and
was bored again.

She saw nothing before her but more and more bore-
dom; and the subject of Anne alone held out the
prospect of relief. She flew to it as she would have fled
from any danger.

"By the way, Maisie, if I were you I wouldn't let
Anne see too much of Jerrold."

"Why not?"

"Because, my dear, it isn't good for her."

2S2 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

'^I should ^have thought/' Maisie said, ^4t was very
good for both of them, as they like each other. I
should never dream of interfering with their friendship.
That's the way people get themselves thoroughly dis-
liked. I don't want Jerry to dislike me, Or Anne, either.
I like them to feel that if he ts married they can go on
being friends just the same."

"Oh, of course, if you like it "

"I do like it," said Maisie, firmly.

Firm opposition was a thing that Adeline's wilfulness
could never stand. It always made her either change
the subject or revert to her original statement. This
time she reverted.

"My point was that it isn't fair to Anne."

"Why isn't it?"

"Because she's in love with him."

"That," said Maisie, with increasing decision, "I do
not believe. I've never seen any signs of it."

"You're the only person who hasn't then. It sticks
out of her. If it was a secret I shouldn't have told you."

"It is a secret to me," said Maisie, "so I think you
might let it alone."

"You ought to know it if nobody else does. We've
all of us known about Anne for ages. She was always
quite mad about Jerrold. It was funny when she was
a little thing; but it's rather more serious now she's
thirty."

"She isn't thirty," said Maisie, contradictiously.

"Almost thirty. It's a dangerous age, Maisie. And
Anne's a dangerous person. She's absolutely reckless.
She always was."

" I thought you thought she was in love with Colin."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FDSLDINGB 283

"I never thought it."

Maisie hated people who lied to her.

"Why did you tell Jerrold they were lovers, then?*'
she said.

"Did I tell Jerrold they were lovers?*'

"He thinks you did.**

"He must have misunderstood what I said. Colin
gave me his word of honour that there was nothing
between them.'*

But Maisie had no mercy.

"Why should he do that if you didn't think there
was? If you were mistaken then you may be mistaken
now."

"I'm not mistaken now. Ask Colin, ask Eliot, ask
Anne's father."

"I shouldn't dream of asking them. You forget, if
Jerrold's my husband, Anne's my friend."

"Then for goodness sake keep her out of mischief.
Keep her out of Jerrold's way. Anne's a darling and
I'm devoted to her, but she always did love playing
with fire. If she's bent on burmng her pretty wings it
isn't kmd to bring her where the lamp is."

"I'd trust Anne's wings to keep her out of danger."

"How about Jerrold's danger? You might think of
bim."

"I do think of him. And I trust him. Absolutely."

"I don't. I don't trust anybody absolutely."

"One thing's clear," said Maisie, "that it's tim^ we
had tea."

She got up, with an annihilating dignity, and rang
the bell. Adeline's smile intimated that she was un-
beaten and imconvinced.

284 ANNE SEVERN AND THE PIELDINGS

That evening John Severn came into his wife's room
as she was dressmg for dumer.

^'I wish to goodness Anne hadn't this craze for
farming/' he said. "She's simply working herself to
death. I never saw her look so seedy. I'm sorry
Jerrold let her have that farm."

"So am I," said Adeline. "I never saw Jerry look
so seedy, either. Maisie's been behaving like a perfect
idiot. If she wanted them to go off together she
couldn't have done better."

"You don't imagine," John said, "that's what they're
after?"

"How do I know what they're after? You never can
tell with people like Jerrold and Anne. They're both
utterly reckless. They don't care who suffers so long
as they get what they want. If Anne had the morals
of a — of a mouse, she'd clear out."

"I think," John said, "you're mistaken. Anne isn't
like that. ... I hope you haven't said anything to
Maisie?"

Adeline made a face at him, as much as to say, " What
do you take me for?" She lifted up her charming,
wilful face and powdered it carefully.

m

The earth smelt of the coming ram. All night the
trees had whispered of rain coming to-morrow. Now
they waited.

At noon the wind dropped. Thick clouds, the colour
of dirty sheep's wool, packed tight by their own move-
ment, roofed the sky and walled it round, hanging close
to the horizon. A slight heaving and swelling in the

ANNE SEVERN AND tHB FIELDINGS 286

grey mass packed it tighter. It was pregnant with rain.
Here and there a steaming vapour broke from it as if
puffed out by some immense interior commotion. Thin
tissues detached themselves and hung like a frayed
hem, lengthening, streaming to the hilltops in the west.

Anne was going up the fields towards the Manor and
Jerrold was coming down towards the Manor Farm.
They met at the plantation as the first big drops fell.

He called out to her, "I say, you oughtn't to be out
a day like this."

Anne had been ill all January with a slight touch of
pleurisy after a cold that she had taken no care of.

*'I'm going to see Maisie."

''You're not^^^ he said. "It's goin^ to rain like
fury."

''Maisie knows I don't mind rain," Anne said, and
laughed.

"Maisie'd have a fit if she knew you were out in it.
Look, how it's coming down over there."

Westwards and northwards the round roof and walls
of cloud were shaken and the black rain hung sheeted
between sky and earth. Overhead the dark tissues
thinned out and lengthened. The fir trees quivered;
they gave out slight creaking, crackling noises as the
rain came down. It poured off each of the sloping fir
branches like a jet from a tap.

''We must make a dash for it," Jerrold said. And
they ran together, laughing, down the field to Anne's
shelter at the bottom. He pushed back the sliding
door.

The rain drunmied on the roof and went hissing
along the soaked ground; it sprayed out as the grass

286 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQ6

bent and parted under it; every hollow tuft was a
water spout. The fields were dim bdiind the shining,
gUssy bead curtain of the ram.

The wind rose again and shook the rain curtain and
blew it into the shelter. Rain scudded across the floor,
wetting them where they stood. Jerrold slid the door
to. They were safe now from the downpour.

Anne's bed stood in the comer tucked up in its grey
blankrts. They sat down on it side by side.

For a moment they were silent, held by their memory.
They were shut in there with their past. It came up
to them, close and living, out of the bright, alien mys-
tery of the rain.

He put his hand on the shoulder of Anne's coat to
feel if it was wet. At his touch she trembled.

"It hasn't gone through, has it?"

"No," she said and coughed again.

"Anne, I hate that cou^ of yours. You never had
a cough before."

"I've never had pleurisy before."

"You wouldn't have had it if you hadn't been fright-
fully run down."

"It's all over now," she said.

"It isn't. You may get it again. I don't feel as if
you were safe for one minute. Are you warm?"

"Quite."

"Are your feet wet?"

"No. No. No. Don't worry, Jerry dear; I'm all
right."

"I wouldn't worry if I was with you all the time.
It's not seeing you. Not knowing."

"Don't," she said. "I can't bear it."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINaS 287

And they were silent again.

Their silence was more real to them than the somid-
ing storm. There was danger in it. It drew them back
and back. It was poignant and reminiscent. It came
to them like the long stillness before their passion.
They had waited here bdfore, like this, through mo-
ments tense and increadng, for the supremei toppling
instant of their joy.

Their minds went romid and round, looking for words
to break the silence and finding none. They were held
there by their danger.

At last Anne spoke.
Do you think it's over?*'
No. It's only just begun."

The rain hurled itself against the window, as if it
would pluck them out into the storm. It brimmed
over from the roof like water poured out from ^ bucket.

"We'll have to sit tight till it stops," he said.

Silence again, long, inveterate, dangerous. Every
now and then Anne coughed, the short, hard cough
that hurt and frightened him. He knew he ought to
leave her; every minute increased their danger. But
he couldn't go. He felt that, after all they might have
done and hadn't done, heaven had some scheme of
compensation in which it owed them this moment.

She turned from him coughing, and that sign of her
weakness, the sight of her thin shoulders shaking filled
him with pity that was passion itself. He thought of
the injustice life had heaped on Anne's innocence; of
the cruelty that had tracked her and hunted her down;
of his own complicity with her suffering. He thought
of his pity for Maisie as treachery to Anne, of his

288 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINOS

honour as cowardice. Instead of piling up wall after
wall, he ought never to have let anything come between
him and Anne. Not even Maisie. Not even his
honour. His honour belonged to Anne far more than
to Maide. The rest had been his own blundering folly,
and he had no right to let Anne be punished for it.

An hour ago the walls had stood solid between them.
Now a furious impulse seized him to tear them down
and get through to her. This time he would hold her
and never let her go.

His thoughts went the way his passion went. Then
suddenly she turned and they looked at each other
and he thought no more. All his thoughts went down «
in the hot rushing darkness of his blood.

"Anne," he said, "Anne" — His voice sounded like
aery.

They stood up suddenly and were swept together;
he held her tight, shut in his arms, his body straining -•
to her. They clung to each other as if only by clinging
they could stand against the hot darkness that drowned .
ihem; and the more they clung the more it came over
them, wave after wave.

Then in the darkness he heard her crying to him to
let her go.

"Don't make me, Jerrold, don't make me."

"Yes. Yes.'*'

"No. Oh, why did we ever come here?"

He pressed her closer and she tried to push him off
with weak hands that had once been strong. He felt
her breakable in his arms, and utterly defenceless.

"I can't," she cried. "I should feel as if Maisie were
there and looking at us. . • . Don't make me."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDING8 289

Suddenly he let her gp.

He was beaten by the sheer weakness of her strug^e.

He couldn't fight for his flesh, like a brute, against that

helplessness.

''If I gp, youH stay here till the rain stops?"
" Yes. I'm sorry, Jerry. YouTl get so wet."
That made him laugh. And, laughing, he left her.

Then tears came, cutting through his eyelids like blood

from a dry wound. They mixed with the rain and

blinded him.
And Anne sat on the Uttle grey bed in her shelter

and stared out at the rain and cried.

^-

I

*■-

XIX

ANNE AND ELIOT

1

She knew what she would do now.

She would go away and never see Jerrold again,
never while their youth lasted, while they could still
feel. She would go out of England, so far away that
they couldn't meet. She would go to Canada and farm.

All nigiht she lay awake with her mind fixed on the
one thought of going away. There was nothing else to
be done, no room for worry or hesitation. They
couldn't hold out any longer, she and Jerrold, strained
to the breaking-point, tortured with the sight of each
other.

As she lay awake there came to her the peace that
comes with aU unmense and clear decisions. Her mind
would never be torn and divided any more. And
towards morning she fell asleep.

She woke dulled and bewildered. Her mind strug-
gled with a sense of appalling yet undefined disaster.
Something had happened overnight, she couldn't re-
member what. Something had happened. No. Some-
thing was going to happen. She tried to fall back into
sleep, fighting against the return of consciousness; it
came on, wave after wave, beating her down.

Now she remembered. She was going away. She
would never see Jerrold again. She was going to
Canada.

290

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINOS 291

The sharp, clear name made the whole thmg real
and irrevocable. It was somethmg that would actually
happen soon. To her. She was going. And when
she had gone she would not come back.

She got up and looked out of the window. She saw
the green field sloping down to the river and the road,
and beyond the road, to the right, the rise of the Manor
fields and the belt of firs. And in her mind, more
real than they, the Manor house, the garden, and the
many-coloiu-ed hills beyond, rolling, curve after curve,
to the straight, dark-blue horizon. The scene that
held her childhood, all her youth, all her happiness;
that had drawn her back, again and again, in memory <^
and in dreams, making her ho^ ache. How could she
leave it? How could she Uve with that pain?

If she was going to-be a coward, if she was going to
be afraid of pain — How was she to escape it, how was
Jerrold to escape? If she stayed on they would break
down together and give in; they would be lovers again,
and again M^susie's sweet, wounding face would come
between them; they could never get away from it;
and in the end their remorse would be as unbearable
as tliyeir separation. She couldn't drag Jerrold through
that agony again.

No. life wasn't worth living if you were a coward *"
and afraid. And under all her misery Anne had still
the sense that life was somehow worth Uving even if it
made you miserable. Life was either your friend or
your enemy. If it was your friend you served it; if
it was your enemy you stood up to it and refused to
let it beat you, and your enemy became your servant.
Whatever happened, your work remained. Still there

292 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

would be ploughing and sowing, and reaping and
ploughing again. Still the earth waited. She thought ,
of the unknown Canadian earth that waited for h^ j
tilling.

Jerrold was not a coward. He was not afraid — well,
only afraid of the people he loved getting ill and dying;
and she was not going to get ill and die.

She would have to tell him. She would go to hJTn in
the fields and tell him.

But before she did that she must make the thing
irrevocable. So Anne wrote to the steamship company,
booking her passage in two weeks' time; she wrote to
Eliot, asking him to call at the company's office and
see if he could get her a decent cabin. She went to
Wyck and posted her letters, and then to the Far Acres
field where Jerrold was watching the ploughing.

They met at the "headland." They would be safe
there on the ploughed land, in the open air.

"What is it, Anne?" he said.

"Nothing. I want to talk to you."

"AU right."

Her set face, her hard voice gave him a premonition
of disaster.

"It's simply this," she said. "What happened yes-
terday mustn't happen again."

"It shan't. I swear it shan't. I was a beast. I
lost my head."

"Yes, but it may happen again. We can't go on
like this, Jerry. The strain's too awful."

"You mean you can't trust me."

"I can't trust myself. And it isn't fair to you."

"Oh, me. That doesn't matter."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 293

'^Well^ then, say I matter. It's the same for me.
I'm never gomg to let that happen agam. I'm gomg
away."

" Going away ''

"Yes. And I'm not commg back this time."

His voice struggled in his throat. Something choked
him. He couldn't speak.

"I'm going to Canada in a fortnight."

"Good God! You can't go to Canada."

" I can. I've booked my passage."

His face was suddenly sallow white, ghastly. His
heart heaved and he felt sick.

"Nothing on earth will stop me."

" Won't Maisie stop you? If you do this she'll know.
Can't you see how it gives us away?"

"No. It'll only give me away. If Maisie asks me
why I'm going I shall tell her I'm in love with you,
and that I can't stand it; that I'm too imhappy. I'd
rather she thought I cared for you than that she should
think you cared for me."

"She'll think it all the same."

"Then I shall have to he. I must risk it. • . • Oh
Jerry, don't look so awful! I've got to go. We've set-
tled it that we can't go on deceiving her, and we aren't
going to make her unhappy. There's nothing else to
be done."

"Except to bear it."

"And how long do you suppose that'll last? We
carCt bear it. Look at it straight. It's all so horribly
simple. If we were beasts and only thougjht of our-
selves and didn't think of Maisie it wouldn't matt^ to
us what we did. But we can't be beasts. We can't

aM ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDING3

lie to Maisie, and we can't tell her the truth. We can't
go on seeing each other without wanting each other —
unbearably — and we can't go on wanting each other
without — some day — giving in. It comes back the
first minute we're alone. And we don't mean to give
in. So we mustn't see each other, that's all. Can you
tell me one other thing I can do?"

"But why should it be yout Why should you get the
worst of it?"

"Because one of us has got to clear out. It can't be
you, so it's got to be me. And going away isn't the
worst of it. It'll be worse for you sticking on here
where everything reminds you — At least I shall have
new things to keep my mind off it."

"Nothing will keep your mind off it. You'll fret
yourself to death."

"No, I shan't. I shall have too much to do. You're
not to be sorry for me, Jerrold."

"But you're giving up everything. The Barrow
Farm. The place you wanted. You won't have a
thing."

"I don't want * things.' It's easier to chuck them
than to hang on to them when they'll remind me^ . • •
Really, if I could see any other way I'd take it."

"But you can't go. You're not fit to go. You're
iU."

"I shall be all right when I get there."

"But what do you think you're going to do in
Canada? It's not as if you'd got anjrthing to go for."

"I shall find something. I shall work on somebody's
ranch first and learn Canadian farming. Then I shall
look out for land and buy it. I've got stacks of money.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FXELDINQS 2M

All Grandpapa Everitt's, and the money for the farm.
Stacks. I shall get on all right."

"When did you think of aU this?"

"Last night."

"I see. I made you."

"No. I made myself. After all, it's the easiest way."

"For you, or me?"

"For both of us. Honestly, it's the only straight
thing. I ought to have done it long ago."

"It means never seeing each other again. You'll
never come back."

"Never while we're young. When we're both old,
too old to feel any more, then I'll come back some day,
emd we'll be friends."

And still his will beat against hers in vain, till at last
he stopped; sick and exhausted.

They went together down the ploughed land into the
pastures, and through the pastures to the mill water.
In the opposite field they could see the brown roof
and walls of the shelter.

"What are you going to plant in the Seven Acres
field?"

"Barley," he said.

"You can't. It was barley last year."

"Was it?"

They were silent then. Jerrold struggled with his
feeling of deadly sickness. Anne couldn't trust herself
to speak. At the Barrow Farm gate they parted.

u

Maisie's eyes looked at him across the table, won-
dering. Her Uttle drooping mouth was half open with

296 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

anxiety, as if any minute she was going to say some-
thing. The looldng-glass had shown him his haggard
and discoloured face, a face to frighten her. He tried
to eat, but the sight and smell of hot roast mutton
sickened him.

" Oh, Jerrold, can't you eat it? ''

"No, I can't. Fm sorry.''

"There's some cold chicken. Will you have that?"

"No, thanks."

"Try and eat something."

"I can't. I feel sick."

"Don't sit up, then. Go and lie down."

"I will if you don't mind."

He went to his room and was sick. He lay down on
his bed and tried to sleep. His head ached violently
and every movement made him heave; he couldn^t
sleep; he couldn't He still; and presently he got up
and went out again, up to the Far Acres field to the
ploughing. He couldn't overcome the physical sickness
of his misery, but he could force himself to move, to
tramp up and down the stiff furrows, watching the
tractor; he kept himself going by the sheer strength of
his will. The rattle and clank of the tractor ground
into his head, making it ache again. He was stunned
with great blows of noise and pain, so that he couldn't
think. He didn't want to think; he wa^ glad of the
abominable sensations that stopped him. He went
from field to field, avoiding the boundaries of the Bar-
row Farm lest he should see Anne.

When the sim set and the land darkened he went
home.

At dinner he tried to eat, sickened again, and leaned

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 297

back in his chair; he forced himself to sit through the
meal, taUdng to Maisie. When it was over he went
to bed and lay awake till the morning.

The next day passed in the same way, and the next
night; and always he was aware of Maisie's sweet face
watching him with frightened eyes and an miuttered
question. He was afraid to tell her that Anne was
going lest she should put down his illness to its true
cause.

And on the third day, when he heard her say she
was going to see Anne, he told her.

''Oh, Jerrold, she can't really mean it."

''She does mean it. I said everything I could to
stop her, but it wasn't any good. She's taken her
passage."

"But why — why should she want to go?"

"I can't tell you why. You'd better ask her."

"Has anjrthing happened to upset her?"

"What on earth should happen?"

"Oh, I don't know. When did she tell you this? "

He hesitated. It was dangerous to lie when Maisie
might get the truth from Anne.

"The day before yesterday."

Maisie's eyes were fixed on him, considering it. He
knew she was saying to herself, "That was the day
you came home so sick and queer."

"Jerry — did you say anything to upset her?"

"No."

"I can't think how she could want to go."

"Nor I. But she's going."

"I shall go down and see if I can't make her stay."
Do. But you won't if I can't," he said.

i(

298 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS

• ••

m

Maisie went down early in the afternoon to see Anne.

She couldn't think how Anne could want to leave
the Barrow Farm house when she had just got into it,
when they had all made it so nice for her; she couldn't
think how she could leave them when she cared for
them, when she knew how they cared for her.

"You do care for us, Anne?"

"Oh yes, I care."

" And you wanted the farm. I can't understand your
going just when youVe got it, when youVe settled, in
and when Jerrold took all that trouble to make it
nice for you. It isn't like you, Anne."

"I know. It must seem awful of me; but I can't
help it, Maisie darling. I've got to go. You mustn't
try and stop me. It only makes it harder."

"Then it is hard? You don't really want to go?"

"Of course I don't. But I must."

Maisie meditated, trying to make it out.

"Is it — is it because you're unhappy?"

Anne didn't answer.

"You are unhappy. You've been unhappy ever so
long. Can't we do anjrthing?"

"No. Nobody can do anything."

"It isn't," said Maisie at last, "anything to do with
Jerrold?"

"You wouldn't ask me that, Maisie, if you didn't
know it was."

"Perhaps I do know. Do you care for him very
much, Anne?"

"Yes, I care for him, very much. And I can't stand
it."

ANNE Severn' and the heldings 209

"It's so bad that youVe got to go away?"

"It's so bad that IVe got to go away."

"That's very brave of you/'

"Or very cowardly."

"No, You couldn't be a coward. . . . Oh, Anne
darling, I'm so sorry."

" Don't be sorry. It's my own fault. I'd no busmess
to get into this state. Don't let's talk about it, Maisie."

"All right, I won't. But I'm sorry. . . . Only one
thing. It — it hasn't made you hate me, has it?"

"You know it hasn't."
Oh, Anne, you are beautiful."
I'm anything but, if you only knew."

She had got beyond the pain of Maisie's goodness,
Maisie's trust. No possible blow from Maisie's mind
could hurt her now. Nothing mattered. Maisie's
trust and goodness didn't matter, since she had done
all she knew; since she was going away; since she would
never see Jerrold again, never till their youth was gone
and they had ceased to feel.

iv

That afternoon Eliot arrived at Wyck Manor. His
coming was his answer to Anne's letter.

He went over to the Barrow Farm about five o'clock
when Anne's work would be done. Anne was still out,
and he waited till she should come back.

As he waited he looked round her room. This, he
thought, was the place that Anne had set her heart on
having for her own; it was the home they had made
for her. Something terrible must have happened before
she could bring herself to leave it. She must have

It

300 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDING3

been driven to the breaking-point. She was broken.
Jerrold must have driven and broken her.

He heard her feet on the flagged path, on the thresh-
old of the house; she stood in the doorway of the room,
looking at him, startled.

"Eliot, what are you doing there? *'

" Waiting for you. You must have known I'd come.'*
To say good-bye? That was nice of you."
No, not to say good-bye. I should come to see
you off if you were going."

"But I am going. YouVe seen about my be^,
haven't you?"

"No, I haven't. We've got to talk about it first."

He looked dead tired. She remembered that she
was his hostess.

"Have you had tea?"

"No. You're going to give me some. Then we'll
talk about it."

"Talking won't be a bit of good."

"I think it may be," he said.

She rang the bell and they waited. She gave him
his tea, and while they ate and drank he talked to her
about the weather and the land, and about his work
and the book he had just finished on Amoebic Dysen-
tery, and about Colin and how well he was now.
Neither of them spoke of Jerrold or of Maisie.

When the tea things were cleared away he leaned
back and looked at her with his kind, deep-set, atten-
tive eyes. She loved Eliot's eyes, and his queer, clever
face that was so like and so unUke his father's, so
utterly unlike Jerrold's.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 301

"You needn't tell me why you're going/' he said at
last. " I've seen Jerrold,"

"DidheteUyou?"

"No. You've only got to look at him to see."

"Do you think Maisie sees?"

"I can't tell you. She isn't stupid. She must won-
der why you're going like this."

"I told her. I told her I was in love with Jerrold."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. Only that she was sorry. I told her so
that she mightn't think he cared for me. She needn't
know that."

"She isn't stupid," he said again.

"No. But she's good. She trusts him so. She
trusted me. ... EUot, that was the worst of it, the
way she trusted us. That broke us down."

"Of course she trusted you."

"Did you?"

"You know I did."

"And yet," she said, "I beUeve you knew. You
knew all the time."

"n I didn't, I know now."

"Everything?"

"Everythmg."

"How? Because of my going away? Is that it? '^

"Not altogether. I've seen you happy and I've seen
you unhappy. I've seen you with Jerrold. I've seen
you with Maisie. Nobody else would have seen it,
but I did, because I knew you so well. And because I
was afraid of it. Besides, you almost told me."

"Yes, and you said it wouldn't make any difference.
Does it?"

302 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"No. None. I know, whatever you did, you wouldn't
do it only for yourself. You did this for Jerrold. And
you were unhappy because of it.''

"No. No. I was happy. We were only unhappy
afterwards because of Maisie. It was so awful going
on deceiving her, hiding it and lying. I feel as if
everything I said and did then was a lie. That was
how I was punished. Not being able to tell the truth.
And I could have borne even that if it wasn't for Jer-
rold. But he hated it, too. It made him wretched."

" I know it did. If you hadn't been so fine it wouldn't
have punished you."

"TAe horrible thing was knowing what I'd done to
Jerrold, making him hide and lie."

"Oh, what you've done to Jerrold — You've done
him nothing but good. You've made him finer than
he could possibly have been without you."

" I've made him frightfully unhappy."

"Not imhappier than he's made you. And it's what
he had to be. I told you long ago Jerrold wouldn't be
any good till he'd suffered danmably. Well — he has
suffered damnably. And he's got a soul becaiise of it.
He hadn't much of one before he loved you." *-

" How do you mean? "

"I mean he used to think of nothing but his own
happiness. Now he's thinking of nothing but Maisie's
and yours. He loves {(ou better than himself . He even
loves Maisie better — I mean he thinks more of her —
than he did before he loved you. There are two people
that he cares for more than himself. He cares more
for his own honour than he did. And for yours. And

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 303

that's yoiir doing. Just think how you'd have wrecked
him if you'd been a different sort of woman."

" No. Because then he wouldn't have cared for me."

*^No, I believe he wouldn't. He chose wdl."
You were always much too good to me."
No; Anne. I want you to see this thing straight,
and to see yourself as you really are. Not to go back
on yourself."

''I don't go back on myself. That would be going
back on Jerrold. I'm sorry because of Maisie, that's
all. If I'd had an ounce of sense I'd never have known
her. I'd have gone off to some place not too far away
where Jerrold could have come to me and where I
should never have seen Maisie. That's what I should
have done. We should both have been happy then."

"Yes, Jerrold would have been happy. And he
wouldn't have saved his soul. And he'd have been
deceiving Maisie all the time. You don't really wish
you'd done that, Anne."

"No. Not now. And I'm not unhappy about
Maisie now. I'm going away. I'm giving Jerrold up.
I can't do more than that."

"You wouldn't have to go away, Anne, if you'd do
what I want and marry me. You said perhaps you
might if you had to save Jerrold."

"Did I? I don't think I did."

"You've forgotten and I haven't. You don't know
what an appalling thing you're doing. You're leaving
everything and everybody you ever cared for. You'll
die of sheer imhappiness."

"Nonsense, Eliot. You know perfectly well that
people don't die of unhappiness. They die of accidents

dOi ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINOS

and diseases a&d old age. I shall die of old age. And I'll
be back in twenty years' time if I've seen it through."

"Twenty years. The best years of your life. You'll
be desperatdy londy. You don't know what it'll be
like."

"Oh yes, I do. I've been lonely before now. And
I've saved myself by working."

"Yes, in England, where you could see some of us
sometimes. But out there, with people you never saw
before — people who may be brutes "

"They needn't be."

He went on relentlessly. "People you don't care for
and never will care for. You've never really cared for
anybody but us."

"I haven't. I'm going because I care. I can't let
Jerry go on like that. I've got to end it."

"You're going simply to save Jerrold. So that you
can never go back to him. Don't you see that if you
married me you'd both be safe? You couldn't go back.
If you were married to me Jerrold wouldn't take you
from me. If you were married to me you wouldn't
break faith with me. If you had children you wouldn't
break faith with them. Nothing could keep you
safer."

"I can't, Eliot. Nothing's changed. I belong to
Jerrold. I always have belonged to him. It isn't any-
thing physical. Even if I'm separated from him, thou-
sands of miles, I shall belong to him still. My mind, or
soul, or whatever the thing is, can't get away from
him. . . . You say if I belonged to you I couldn't give
myself to Jerrold. If I belong to Jerrold, how can I
gtve myself to you?"

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS SOS

"I see. It's like that, is it?"

"It's like that,"

Eliot said no more. He knew when he was beaten.

Maisie sat alone in her own room, thinking it over.
She didn't know yet that Eliot had come. He had
arrived while she was with Anne and she had missed
him on the way to Barrow Farm, driving up by the
hill road while he walked down through the fields.

She didn't think of Jerrold all at once. Her mind
was taken up with Anne and Anne's imhappiness. She
could see nothing else. She remembered how Adeline
had told her that Anne was in love with Jerrold. She
had said, "It was fimny when she was a Uttle thing."
Anne had loved him all her life, then. All her life she
had had to do without him.

Maisie thought: Perhaps he would have loved her
and married her if it hadn't been for me. And yet
Anne had loved her.

That was Anne's beauty.

She wondered next: If Anne had been in love with
Jerrold all that time, and if they had all seen it, all
the Fieldings and John Severn, how was it that she
had never seen it? She had seen nothing but a perfect
friendship, and she had tried to keep it for them in all
its perfection, so that neither of them should miss any-
thing because Jerrold had married her. She remem-
bered how happy Anne had been when she first knew
her, and she thought: If she was happy then, why is
she unhappy now? If she loved Jerrold all her life, if she
had done without hun all her life, why go away now?

306 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS

Unless something had happened.

It was then that M aisie thought of Jerrold, and
sady drawn face and his sudden sickness the oth^ day.
That was the day he had been with Anne, when she
had told him that she was going away. He had nevef
been the same since. He had neither slept nor eaten.

M aisie had all the pieces of the puzzle loose before
her, and at first sight not one of them looked as if it
would fit. But tibis piece imder her hand fitted.
Jerrold's illness joined on to Anne's g(nng. With a
terrible dread in her heart M aisie put the two things
together and saw the third thing. Jerrold was ill be-
cause Anne was going away. He wouldn't be ill unless
he cared for her. And another thing. Anne was going
away, not because she cared, but because Jerrold cared.
Therefore she knew that he cared for her. Therefore
he had told her. That was what had happened.

When she had put all the pieces into their places she
would have the whole story.

But M aisie didn't want to know any more. She had
enough to make her heart break. She still clung to
her belief in their goodness. They were unhappy be-
cause they had given each other up. And under all
her thinking^ like a quick-running pain, there went her
premonition of its end. She remembered that they
had been happy once when she first knew them. If
they were unhappy now because they had given each
other up, had they been happy then because they
hadn't? For a moment she asked herself, "Were

they ?" and was afraid to finish and answer her

own question. It was enough that they were all un-
happy now and that none of them would ever be

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 307

happy again. Not Anne. Not Jerrold. Their unhap-
piness didn't bear thinking of, and in thmldng of it
Maisie forgot her own.

Her heart shook her breast with its beating, and for
a moment she wondered whether her pain were ban-
ning again. Then the thought of Anne and Jerrold and
herself and of their threefold midivided misery came
upon her, annihilatmg every other thought. As if all
that was physical in Maisie were subdued by the in-
tensity of her suffering, with the coming of the supreme
emotion her body had no pain.

MAISIE, JERROLD, AND ANNE

1

She got up and dressed for dinner as if nothing had
happened, or, rather, as if everything were about to
happen and she were going throu^ with it magnificently,
with no sign that she was beaten. She didn't know yet
what she would do; she didn't see clearly what there
was to be done. She might not have to do anything;
and yet again, vaguely, half-fascinated, half-frightened,
she foresaw that she might be called on to do something,
something that was hard and terrible and at the same
time beautiful and supreme.

And downstairs in the hall, she found Eliot.

He told her that he had come down to see Anne and
that he had done his best to keep her from going away
and that it was all no good.

"We can't stop her. She's got an unbreakable will."

"Unbreakable," she said. "And yet she's broken."

"I know," he said.

In her nervous exaltation she felt that Eliot had
been sent, that Eliot knew. Eliot was wise. He would
help her.

"Eliot " she said. "Will you see me in the

library after dinner? I want to ask you something.''

"If it's about Anne, I don't know that there's any-
thing I can say."

"It's about Jerrold," she said.

308

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 309

After dinner he came to her in the library.

"Where's Jerrold?''

"In the drawing-room with Colin. He won't come

in.''

"Elioty there's something awfully wrong with him.

He can't sleep. He can't eat. He's sick if he tries."
"He looks pretty ghastly."
"Do you know what's the matter with him?"
"How can I know? He doesn't tell me anything.'^
"It's ever since he heard that Anne's going."
" He's worried about her. So am I. So are you."
" He isn't worrying. He's fretting. . . . Eliot — da

you think he cares for her?"

Eliot didn't answer her. He looked at her gravely,

searchingly, as if he were measuring her strength before

he answered.

"Don't be afraid to tell me. I'm not a coward."
"I haven't anything to tell you. It isn't altogether

this affair of Anne's. Jerrold hasn't been fit for a long

time."
"It's been going on for a long time."
"What makes you think so?"
"Oh," said Maisie, "everything."
"Then why don't you ask him?"
"But — if it is so — would he tell me?"
"I don't know. Perhaps he wants to tell you, only

he's afraid. Anyhow, if it isn't so he'll tell you and

you'll be happy."

"Somehow I don't think I'm going to be happy."
"Then," he said, "you're going to be brave."
She thou^t: He knows. He's known all the time^

only he won't give them away.

810 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

"Yes," she said, "FU ask him."
"Maisie — if it is so what will you do?"
"Do? There's only one thing I can do."
She turned to him, and her m^-white face was grey-
white, ashen; the skin had a slack, pitted look, sud-
denly old. The soft flesh trembled. But her mouth
and eyes were still. In this moment of her agony no
base emotion defaced their sweetness, so that she seemed
to him utterly composed. She had seen what she
could do. Something hard and terrible.
"I can set him free."

..
u

That was the end she had seen before her, vaguely,
as something not only hard and terrible, but beautiful
and supreme. To leave off clinging to the illusion of
her happiness. To let go. And with that letting go
she was aware that an obscure horror had been hanging
over her for three days and three nights and wa? now,
gone. She stood free of herself, in a great light and
peace, so that presently when Jerrold came to her she
met him with an incomparable tranquillity.

"Jerrold "

The slight throbbing of her voice startled him coming
out of her stillness.

They stood up, facing each other, in attitudes that
had no permanence, as if what must pass between them
now would be sudden and soon over.

"Do you care for Anne?"

The words dropped clear through her stillness, vibrat-
ing. His eyes went from her, evading the issue. Her
voice came with a sharper stress.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 311

"I mvst know. Do you care for her? '*

''Yes/'

"And that's why she's going?"

"Yes. That's why she's going. Did Eliot say any-
thing?"

"No. He only told me to ask you. He said you'd
tell me the truth."

"I have told you the truth. I'm sorry, Maisie*"

"I know you're sorry. So am I "

"But, you see, it isn't as if I'd begun after I married
you. I've cared for her all my life."

"Then why didn't you marry her?"

"Because, first of all, I didn't know I cared. And
' afterwards I thought she cared for Colin."

"You never asked her?"

"No. I thought — I thou^t they were lovers."

" You thought that of her? "

"Well, yes. I thought it would be just like her to
give everything. I knew if she cared enough she'd
stick at nothing. She wouldn't do it for herself."

"That was — when?"

"The time I came home on leave three years ago."

"The time you married me. Why did you marry
me, if you didn't care for me?"

"I would have cared for you if I hadn't cared for her."

"But, when you cared for her ?"

" I thought we should find something in it. I wanted
you to be happy. More than anything I wanted you
to be happy. I thought I'd be killed in my next
action and that nothing would matter."

"That you wouldn't have to keep it up?"

"Oh, I'd have kept it up all right if Anne hadn't

312 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINQS

been there. I cared enough for you to want you to be
happy. I wanted you to have a child. You'd have
liked that. That would have made you happy."

"PoorJerrold "

''I'd have been all right if I hadn't seen Anne again."

"When did you see her again?"

''Last spring."

"Only last spring?"

"Yes, only."

"When I was away."

She remembered. She remembered how she had first
come to Wyck and f oimd Jerrold happy and superbly
well.

"But," she said, "you were happy then."

He sighed, a long, tearing sigh that hurt her.

"Yes. We were happy then."

And in a flash of terrific clarity she remembered
her home-coming and the night that followed it and
Jerrold's acquiescence in their separation.

"Then," she said, "if you were happy "

"Do you want to know how far it went?"

"I want to know everything. I want the truth. I
think you owe me the truth."

"It went just as far as it could go."

"Do you mean "

He stood silent and she f oimd his words for him.

"You were Anne's lover?"

"Yes."

Her face changed before him, as it had changed an
hour ago before Miot, ashen-white and slack, quivering,
suddenly old.

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 313

Tears came into his eyes, tears of remorse and pity.
She saw them and her heart ached for him.

''It didn't last long," he said.

''How long?"

"From March till — till September."

"I remember."

"Maisie — I can't ask you to forgive me. But you
must forgive Anne. It wasn't her fault. I made her
do it. And she's been awfully imhappy about it, be-
cause of you."

"Ah — that was why "

"Won't you forgive her?"

"I forgive you both. I don't know how I should
have felt if you'd been happy. I can't see anything
but your imhappiness."

"We gave it up because of you. That was Anne.
She couldn't bear going on after she knew you, when
you were such an angel. It was your goodness and
sweetness broke us down."

^'But if I'd been the most disagreeable person it
would have been just as wrong.'^

"It wouldn't, for in that case we shouldn't have de-
ceived you. I should have told you straight and left you."

"Why didn't you tell me, Jerrold? Why didn't you
tell me in the beginning?"

"We were afraid. We didn't want to hurt you."

"As if that mattered."

"It did matter. We were going to tell you. Then
you were ill and we couldn't. We thought you'd die
of it, with your poor little heart in that state."

"Oh, my dear, did you suppose I'd hurt you that
way?"

It

314 ANNE SEVERN AND THE ilELDINGS

''That was what we couldn't bear. Not being
straight about it. That was why we gave each other
up. It never happened again. Anne's going away so
that it mayn't happen. • • . Maisie — you do believe
me?"

Yes, I believe you. I believe you did all you knew/'
We did. But it's my fault that Anne's going. I
lost my head, and she was afraid."

"If only you'd told me. I shouldn't have been hard
on you, Jerry. You knew that, didn't you?"

"Yes. I knew."

"And you went through all that agony rather than
hurt me."

"Yes."

"The least I can do, then, is to let you go."

"Would you, Maisie?"

"Of course. I married you to make you happy. I
must make you happy this way, that's all. But if I
do you mustn't think I don't care for you. I care for
you so much that nothing matters but your happi-

ness."

"Maisie, I'm not fit to live in the same world with
you."

"You mustn't say that. You're fit to Kve in the
same world with Anne. I suppose I could have made
this all ugly and shameful for you. But I want to keep
it beautiful. I want to give you all beautiful to Anne,
so that you'll never go back on it, and never feel
ashamed."

"You made me ashamed every time we thought of
you."

" Don't think of me. Think of each other."

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 315

"Oh — you're adorable.*'

"No, I'm doing this because I love you both. But
if I didn't love you I should do it for myself. I should
hate myself if I didn't. I can't think of anything more *
disgusting and dishonoiu'able than to keep a man tied
to you when he cares for somebody else. I should feel
as if I were Uving in sin."

"Maisie — will you be awfully unhappy?"

"Yes, Jerrold. But not so unhappy as if I^d kept
you."

"We'll go away somewhere where you won't have to
see us."

"No. It's I who'll go away."

"But I want you to have the Manor and — and
everything. Colin'll look after the estate for me."

"Do you think I could stay here after you'd gone?
. . . No, Jerry, I can't do that for you. You can't
make it up that way."

"I wasn't dreaming of making it up. I simply owe
you everything, everlastmgly, and there's nothmg I
can do. I only remembered that you liked the garden."

"I couldn't bear it. I should hate the garden. I
should hate the whole place."

"I've done that to you?"

"Yes, you've done that to me. It can't be helped.'*'

"But, what will you do, Maisie?"

"I shall go back to my own people. They happen
to care for me."

That was her one reproach.

"Do you think 7 don't?"

"Oh no. I've done the only thing that would make
you care. Perhaps that's what I did it for."

316 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

«

He took the hand she gave him and bowed his head
over it and kissed it.

•••
m

Maisie had a long talk with Elliot after Jerrold had
left her.

She was still tranquil and composed, but Jerrold was
worried. He was afraid lest the emotion roused by his
confession should bring on her pain. That night Eliot
fidept in his father's room, so that he could go to her
if the attack came.

But it did not come.

Late in the afternoon Jerrold went down to the
Barrow Farm and saw Anne. He came back with a
message from her. Anne wanted to see Maide, if
Maisie would let her.

*'But she thinks you won't," he said.

"Why should 1?"

"She's desperately imhappy."

She tiuned from him as if she would have left him,
and then stayed.

"You want me to see her?"

"If you wouldn't hate it too much."

" I shall hate it. But I'll see her. Go and l^ing her."

She dreaded more than anything the sight of Anne.
Her new knowledge of her made Anne strange and ter-
rible. She felt that she would be somehow different.
She would see something in her that she had never seen
before, that she couldn't bear to see. Anne's face
would show her that Jerrold was her lover.

Yet, if she had never seen that look, if she had never
seen anything in Anne's face that was not beautiful,

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FEELDINGS 317

what did that meair but that Anne's love for him was
beautiful? Before it had touched her body it had lived
a long time in her soul. Either Anne's soul was beau-
tiful because of it, or it was beautiful because of Anne's
soul; and Ms^e knew that if she too was to be beau-
tiful she must keep safe the beauty of their passion as
she had kept safe the beauty of their friendship. It
was clear and hard, imbreakable as crystal. She had
been the one flaw in it, the thing that had damaged
its perfection. Now that she had let Jerrold go it
would be perfect.

Anne stood in the doorway of the library, looking at
her and not speaking. She was the same that she had
been yesterday, and before that, and before that;
dressed in the farm clothes that were the queer rough
setting of her charm. The same, except that she was
still more broken, still more beaten, and still more
beautiful in her defeat.

"Anne "

Maisie got up and waited, as Anne shut the door
and stood there with her back to it.

" Maisie — I don't know why I've come. There were
things I wanted to say to you, but I can't say them."

"You want to say you're sorry you took Jerrold
from me."

" I'm bitterly sorry." ^

She came forward with a slender, awkward grace.
Her eyes were fixed on Maisie, thrown open, expecting
pain ; but she didn't shrink or cower.

Maisie's voice came with its old sweetness.

"You didn't take him from me. You couldn't take
what I haven't got."

318 ANNE SEVERNiAND THE FIELDINGS

'*I gave him up, Maisie. I couldn't bear it."

"And IVe given him up. I couldn't bear it, either.
But," she said, "it was harder for you. You had him.
I'm only giving up what IVe never really had. Don't
be too luihappy about it."

"I shall always be unhappy when I think of you.
YouVe been such an angel to me. If we could only
have told you."

"Yes. If only you'd told me. That was where you
went wrong, Anne."

" I coulchi't tell you. You were so ill. I thought it
would kill you."

"Well, what if it had? You shouldn't have thought
of me, you should have thou^t of Jerrold."

"I did think of him. I didn't want him to have
agonies of remorse. It's been bad enough as it is."

"I know what it's been, Anne."

" That's what I really came for now. To see if you'd
had that pain again."

"You needn't be afraid. I shall never have that
*pain again. Elliot told me all about it last night." '

"What did he say?"

"He showed me how it all happened. I was ill
because I couldn't face the truth. The truth was that
Jerrold didn't care for me. It seems my mind knew it
all the time when I didn't. I did know it once, and
part of me went on feeling the shock of it, while the
other part was living like a fool in an illusion, thinking
he cared. And now I've been dragged out of it into
reality. I'm facing it. This is real. And whatever I
miay be I shan't be ill again, not with that illness. I
couldn't help it, but in a way it was as false as if I'd

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS 319

made it up on purpose to hide the truth. And the
truth's cured me."

"Eliot told me it might. And I wouldn't believe
him."

"You can believe him now. He said you and
Jerrold were all right because you'd faced the truth
about yourselves and each other. You held on to
reality."

"EUot said that?"

"Yes. He said it was the test of everybody, how
they took reality, and that Jerrold had had to learn
how, but that you had always known. You were so
true that your worst punishment was not being able
to tell me the truth. I was to think of you like that."

"How can you bear to think of me at all?"

"How can I bear to live? But I shall live."

Maisie's voice dropped, note by note, like clear,
rounded tears, pressed out and shaped by pain.

Anne's voice came thick and quivering out of her
dark secret anguish, like a voice from behind shut
doors.

"Jerrold said you'd forgiven me. Have you?"

"It would be easier for you if I didn't. But I can't
help forgiving you when you're so imhappy. I wouldn't
have forgiven you if you hadn't told me the truth, if
I'd had to find it out that time when you were happy.
Then I'd have hated you."

"You don't now?"

"No. I don't want to see you again, or Jerrold,
either, for a long time. But that's because I love you.'*

"Me?"

"Yes, you too, Anne.'^

320 ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

" How can you love me? "

''Because I'm like you, Amie; I'm faithful/'

"I wasn't faithful to you, Maisie."

"You were to Jerrold."

Amie still stood there, silent, taking in silence the
pain of Maisie's goodness, Maisie's love.

Then Maisie ended it.

" He's waiting for you," she said, *' to take you home."

Anne went to him where he stood by the terrace steps,
illuminated by the light from the windows. In there
she could hear Colin playing, a loud, tempestuous music.
Jerrold waited.

She went past him down the steps without a word,
and he followed her through the garden.

"Anne " he said.

Under the blackness of the yew hedge she turned to
hun, and their hands met.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "Next week I'll take
you away somewhere till it's over."

"Where?"

"Oh, somewhere a long way off, where you'll be
happy."

Somewhere a long way off, beyond this pain, beyond
this day and this night, their joy waited.

"And Maisie?" she said.

"Maisie wants you to be happy."

He held her by the hand as he used to hold her
when they were children, to keep her safe. And hand
in hand, like children, they went down through the
twilight of the fields, together.