Conqueror to be thought of. More armour! And presently she must
go along to the kitchen and remind Ellen to boil some potatoes to
go with the minced beef for supper; also there was her 'memo list'
to be written out for tomorrow. She shaped the two halves of the
breastplate, cut out the armholes and neckholes, and then stopped
again.
Where had she got to? She had been saying that if death ends all,
then there is no hope and no meaning in anything. Well, what then?
The action of going to the scullery and refilling the saucepan had
changed the tenor of her thoughts. She perceived, for a moment at
least, that she had allowed herself to fall into exaggeration and
self-pity. What a fuss about nothing, after all! As though in
reality there were not people beyond number in the same case as
herself! All over the world, thousands, millions of them; people
who had lost their faith without losing their need of faith. 'Half
the parsons' daughters in England,' Mr Warburton had said. He was
probably right. And not only parsons' daughters; people of every
description--people in illness and loneliness and failure, people
leading thwarted, discouraging lives--people who needed faith to
support them, and who hadn't got it. Perhaps even nuns in
convents, scrubbing floors and singing Ave Marias, secretly
unbelieving.
And how cowardly, after all, to regret a superstition that you had
got rid of--to want to believe something that you knew in your
bones to be untrue!
And yet--!
Dorothy had put down her scissors. Almost from force of habit, as
though her return home, which had not restored her faith, had
chair. She buried her face in her hands. She began to pray.
'Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief. Lord, I believe, I
believe; help Thou my unbelief.'
It was useless, absolutely useless. Even as she spoke the words
she was aware of their uselessness, and was half ashamed of her
action. She raised her head. And at that moment there stole into
her nostrils a warm, evil smell, forgotten these eight months but
unutterably familiar--the smell of glue. The water in the saucepan
was bubbling noisily. Dorothy jumped to her feet and felt the
handle of the glue-brush. The glue was softening--would be liquid
in another five minutes.
The grandfather clock in her father's study struck six. Dorothy
started. She realized that she had wasted twenty minutes, and her
conscience stabbed her so hard that all the questions that had been
worrying her fled out of her mind. What on earth have I been doing
all this time? she thought; and at that moment it really seemed to
her that she did not know what she had been doing. She admonished
herself. Come on, Dorothy! No slacking, please! You've got to
get that breastplate done before supper. She sat down, filled her
mouth with pins and began pinning the two halves of the breastplate
together, to get it into shape before the glue should be ready.
The smell of glue was the answer to her prayer. She did not know
this. She did not reflect, consciously, that the solution to her
difficulty lay in accepting the fact that there was no solution;
that if one gets on with the job that lies to hand, the ultimate
purpose of the job fades into insignificance; that faith and no
faith are very much the same provided that one is doing what is
customary, useful, and acceptable. She could not formulate these
thoughts as yet, she could only live them. Much later, perhaps,
she would formulate them and draw comfort from them.
There was still a minute or two before the glue would be ready to
use. Dorothy finished pinning the breastplate together, and in the
same instant began mentally sketching the innumerable costumes that
were yet to be made. After William the Conqueror--was it chain
mail in William the Conqueror's day?--there were Robin Hood--
Lincoln Green and a bow and arrow--and Thomas a Becket in his cope
and mitre, and Queen Elizabeth's ruff, and a cocked hat for the
Duke of Wellington. And I must go and see about those potatoes at
half past six, she thought. And there was her 'memo list' to be
written out for tomorrow. Tomorrow was Wednesday--mustn't forget
to set the alarm clock for half past five. She took a slip of
paper and began writing out the 'memo list':
7 oc. H.C.
Mrs J. baby next month go and see her.
BREAKFAST. Bacon.
She paused to think of fresh items. Mrs J. was Mrs Jowett, the
blacksmith's wife; she came sometimes to be churched after her
babies were born, but only if you coaxed her tactfully beforehand.
And I must take old Mrs Frew some paregoric lozenges, Dorothy
thought, and then perhaps she'll speak to Georgie and stop him
eating those biscuits during the sermon. She added Mrs Frew to her
list. And then what about tomorrow's dinner--luncheon? We simply
MUST pay Cargill something! she thought. And tomorrow was the day
of the Mothers' Union tea, and they had finished the novel that
for them next? There didn't seem to be any more books by Gene
Stratton Porter, their favourite. What about Warwick Deeping? Too
highbrow, perhaps? And I must ask Proggett to get us some young
cauliflowers to plant out, she thought finally.
The glue had liquefied. Dorothy took two fresh sheets of brown
paper, sliced them into narrow strips, and--rather awkwardly,
because of the difficulty of keeping the breastplate convex--pasted
the strips horizontally across it, back and front. By degrees it
stiffened under her hands. When she had reinforced it all over she
set it on end to look at it. It really wasn't half bad! One more
coating of paper and it would be almost like real armour. We MUST
make that pageant a success! she thought. What a pity we can't
borrow a horse from somebody and have Boadicea in her chariot! We
might make five pounds if we had a really good chariot, with
scythes on the wheels. And what about Hengist and Horsa? Cross-
gartering and winged helmets. Dorothy sliced two more sheets of
brown paper into strips, and took up the breastplate to give it its
final coating. The problem of faith and no faith had vanished
utterly from her mind. It was beginning to get dark, but, too busy
to stop and light the lamp, she worked on, pasting strip after
strip of paper into place, with absorbed, with pious concentration,
in the penetrating smell of the glue-pot.
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