her arms.
The Rector, gazing into the middle distance, amid comfortable
wreaths of smoke, did not hear her. He was thinking, perhaps, of
his golden Oxford days. Dorothy went out of the room distressed
almost to the point of tears. The miserable question of the debts
was once more shelved, as it had been shelved a thousand times
before, with no prospect of final solution.
3
On her elderly bicycle with the basketwork carrier on the handle-
bars, Dorothy free-wheeled down the hill, doing mental arithmetic
with three pounds nineteen and fourpence--her entire stock of money
until next quarter-day.
She had been through the list of things that were needed in the
kitchen. But indeed, was there anything that was NOT needed in the
kitchen? Tea, coffee, soap, matches, candles, sugar, lentils,
firewood, soda, lamp oil, boot polish, margarine, baking powder--
there seemed to be practically nothing that they were not running
short of. And at every moment some fresh item that she had
forgotten popped up and dismayed her. The laundry bill, for
example, and the fact that the coal was running short, and the
question of the fish for Friday. The Rector was 'difficult' about
fish. Roughly speaking, he would only eat the more expensive
kinds; cod, whiting, sprats, skate, herrings, and kippers he
refused.
Meanwhile, she had got to settle about the meat for today's dinner--
luncheon. (Dorothy was careful to obey her father and call it
LUNCHEON, when she remembered it. On the other hand, you could not
in honesty call the evening meal anything but 'supper'; so there
was no such meal as 'dinner' at the Rectory.) Better make an
omelette for luncheon today, Dorothy decided. She dared not go to
Cargill again. Though, of course, if they had an omelette for
luncheon and then scrambled eggs for supper, her father would
probably be sarcastic about it. Last time they had eggs twice in
one day, he had inquired coldly, 'Have you started a chicken farm,
Dorothy?' And perhaps tomorrow she would get two pounds of
sausages at the International, and that staved off the meat-
question for one day more.
Thirty-nine further days, with only three pounds nineteen and
fourpence to provide for them, loomed up in Dorothy's imagination,
sending through her a wave of self-pity which she checked almost
instantly. Now then, Dorothy! No snivelling, please! It all
comes right somehow if you trust in God. Matthew vi, 25. The Lord
will provide. Will He? Dorothy removed her right hand from the
handle-bars and felt for the glass-headed pin, but the blasphemous
thought faded. At this moment she became aware of the gloomy red
face of Proggett, who was hailing her respectfully but urgently
from the side of the road.
Dorothy stopped and got off her bicycle.
'Beg pardon, Miss,' said Proggett. 'I been wanting to speak to
you, Miss--PARTIC'LAR.'
Dorothy sighed inwardly. When Proggett wanted to speak to you
PARTIC'LAR, you could be perfectly certain what was coming; it was
some piece of alarming news about the condition of the church.
Proggett was a pessimistic, conscientious man, and very loyal
churchman, after his fashion. Too dim of intellect to have any
definite religious beliefs, he showed his piety by an intense
solicitude about the state of the church buildings. He had decided
long ago that the Church of Christ meant the actual walls, roof,
and tower of St Athelstan's, Knype Hill, and he would poke round
the church at all hours of the day, gloomily noting a cracked stone
here, a worm-eaten beam there--and afterwards, of course, coming to
harass Dorothy with demands for repairs which would cost impossible
sums of money.
'What is it, Proggett?' said Dorothy.
'Well, Miss, it's they --'--here a peculiar, imperfect sound, not a
word exactly, but the ghost of a word, all but formed itself on
Proggett's lips. It seemed to begin with a B. Proggett was one of
those men who are for ever on the verge of swearing, but who always
recapture the oath as it is escaping between their teeth. 'It's
they BELLS, Miss,' he said, getting rid of the B sound with an
effort. 'They bells up in the church tower. They're a-splintering
through that there belfry floor in a way as it makes you fair
shudder to look at 'em. We'll have 'em down atop of us before we
know where we are. I was up the belfry 'smorning, and I tell you I
come down faster'n I went up, when I saw how that there floor's a-
Proggett came to complain about the condition of the bells not less
than once a fortnight. It was now three years that they had been
lying on the floor of the belfry, because the cost of either
reswinging or removing them was estimated at twenty-five pounds,
which might as well have been twenty-five thousand for all the
chance there was of paying for it. They were really almost as
dangerous as Proggett made out. It was quite certain that, if not
this year or next year, at any rate at some time in the near
future, they would fall through the belfry floor into the church
porch. And, as Proggett was fond of pointing out, it would
probably happen on a Sunday morning just as the congregation were
coming into church.
Dorothy sighed again. Those wretched bells were never out of mind
for long; there were times when the thought of their falling even
got into her dreams. There was always some trouble or other at the
church. If it was not the belfry, then it was the roof or the
walls; or it was a broken pew which the carpenter wanted ten
shillings to mend; or it was seven hymn-books needed at one and
sixpence each, or the flue of the stove choked up--and the sweep's
fee was half a crown--or a smashed window-pane or the choir-boys'
cassocks in rags. There was never enough money for anything. The
new organ which the rector had insisted on buying five years
earlier--the old one, he said, reminded him of a cow with the
asthma--was a burden under which the Church Expenses fund had been
staggering ever since.
'I don't know WHAT we can do,' said Dorothy finally; 'I really
don't. We've simply no money at all. And even if we do make
anything out of the school-children's play, it's all got to go to
the organ fund. The organ people are really getting quite nasty
about their bill. Have you spoken to my father?'
'Yes, Miss. He don't make nothing of it. "Belfry's held up five
hundred years," he says; "we can trust it to hold up a few years
longer."'
This was quite according to precedent. The fact that the church
was visibly collapsing over his head made no impression on the
Rector; he simply ignored it, as he ignored anything else that he
did not wish to be worried about.
'Well, I don't know WHAT we can do,' Dorothy repeated. 'Of course
there's the jumble sale coming off the week after next. I'm
counting on Miss Mayfill to give us somet
hing really NICE for the
jumble sale. I know she could afford to. She's got such lots of
furniture and things that she never uses. I was in her house the
other day, and I saw a most beautiful Lowestoft china tea service
which was put away in a cupboard, and she told me it hadn't been
used for over twenty years. Just suppose she gave us that tea
service! It would fetch pounds and pounds. We must just pray that
the jumble sale will be a success, Proggett. Pray that it'll bring
us five pounds at least. I'm sure we shall get the money somehow
if we really and truly pray for it.'
'Yes, Miss,' said Proggett respectfully, and shifted his gaze to
the far distance.
At this moment a horn hooted and a vast, gleaming blue car came
very slowly down the road, making for the High Street. Out of one
window Mr Blifil-Gordon, the Proprietor of the sugar-beet refinery,
was thrusting a sleek black head which went remarkably ill with his
suit of sandy-coloured Harris tweed. As he passed, instead of
ignoring Dorothy as usual, he flashed upon her a smile so warm that
it was almost amorous. With him were his eldest son Ralph--or, as
he and the rest of the family pronounced it, Walph--an epicene
youth of twenty, given to the writing of sub-Eliot vers libre
poems, and Lord Pockthorne's two daughters. They were all smiling,
even Lord Pockthorne's daughters. Dorothy was astonished, for it
was several years since any of these people had deigned to
recognize her in the street.
'Mr Blifil-Gordon is very friendly this morning,' she said.
'Aye, Miss. I'll be bound he is. It's the election coming on next
week, that's what 'tis. All honey and butter they are till they've
made sure as you'll vote for them; and then they've forgot your
very face the day afterwards.'
'Oh, the election!' said Dorothy vaguely. So remote were such
things as parliamentary elections from the daily round of parish
work that she was virtually unaware of them--hardly, indeed, even
knowing the difference between Liberal and Conservative or
forgetting the election in favour of something more important,
'I'll speak to Father and tell him how serious it is about the
bells. I think perhaps the best thing we can do will be to get up
a special subscription, just for the bells alone. There's no
knowing, we might make five pounds. We might even make ten pounds!
Don't you think if I went to Miss Mayfill and asked her to start
the subscription with five pounds, she might give it to us?'
'You take my word, Miss, and don't you let Miss Mayfill hear
nothing about it. It'd scare the life out of her. If she thought
as that tower wasn't safe, we'd never get her inside that church
again.'
'Oh dear! I suppose not.'
'No, Miss. We shan't get nothing out of HER; the old--'
A ghostly B floated once more across Proggett's lips. His mind a
little more at rest now that he had delivered his fortnightly
report upon the bells, he touched his cap and departed, while
Dorothy rode on into the High Street, with the twin problems of the
shop-debts and the Church Expenses pursuing one another through her
mind like the twin refrains of a villanelle.
The still watery sun, now playing hide-and-seek, April-wise, among
woolly islets of cloud, sent an oblique beam down the High Street,
gilding the house-fronts of the northern side. It was one of those
sleepy, old-fashioned streets that look so ideally peaceful on a
casual visit and so very different when you live in them and have
an enemy or a creditor behind every window. The only definitely
offensive buildings were Ye Olde Tea Shoppe (plaster front with
sham beams nailed on to it, bottle-glass windows and revolting
curly roof like that of a Chinese joss-house), and the new, Doric-
pillared post office. After about two hundred yards the High
Street forked, forming a tiny market-place, adorned with a pump,
now defunct, and a worm-eaten pair of stocks. On either side of
the pump stood the Dog and Bottle, the principal inn of the town,
and the Knype Hill Conservative Club. At the end, commanding the
street, stood Cargill's dreaded shop.
Dorothy came round the corner to a terrific din of cheering,
mingled with the strains of 'Rule Britannia' played on the
trombone. The normally sleepy street was black with people, and
more people were hurrying from all the sidestreets. Evidently a
sort of triumphal procession was taking place. Right across the
street, from the roof of the Dog and Bottle to the roof of the
Conservative Club, hung a line with innumerable blue streamers, and
in the middle a vast banner inscribed 'Blifil-Gordon and the
Empire!' Towards this, between the lanes of people, the Blifil-
Gordon car was moving at a foot-pace, with Mr Blifil-Gordon smiling
richly, first to one side, then to the other. In front of the car
marched a detachment of the Buffaloes, headed by an earnest-looking
little man playing the trombone, and carrying among them another
banner inscribed:
Who'll save Britain from the Reds?
BLIFIL-GORDON
Who'll put the Beer back into your Pot?
BLIFIL-GORDON
Blifil-Gordon for ever!
From the window of the Conservative Club floated an enormous Union
Jack, above which six scarlet faces were beaming enthusiastically.
Dorothy wheeled her bicycle slowly down the street, too much
agitated by the prospect of passing Cargill's shop (she had got to
pass, it, to get to Solepipe's) to take much notice of the
procession. The Blifil-Gordon car had halted for a moment outside
Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. Forward, the coffee brigade! Half the ladies
of the town seemed to be hurrying forth, with lapdogs or shopping
baskets on their arms, to cluster about the car like Bacchantes
about the car of the vine-god. After all, an election is
practically the only time when you get a chance of exchanging
smiles with the County. There were eager feminine cries of 'Good
luck, Mr Blifil-Gordon! DEAR Mr Blifil-Gordon! We DO hope you'll
get in, Mr Blifil-Gordon!' Mr Blifil-Gordon's largesse of smiles
was unceasing, but carefully graded. To the populace he gave a
diffused, general smile, not resting on individuals; to the coffee
ladies and the six scarlet patriots of the Conservative Club he
gave one smile each; to the most favoured of all, young Walph gave
an occasional wave of the hand and a squeaky 'Cheewio!'
Dorothy's heart tightened. She had seen that Mr Cargill, like the
rest of the shopkeepers, was standing on his doorstep. He was a
tall, evil-looking man, in blue-striped apron, with a lean, scraped
face as purple as one of his own joints of meat that had lain a
little too long in the window. So fascinated were Dorothy's eyes
by that ominous figure that she did not look where she was going,
and bumped into a very large, stout man who was stepping off the
pavement bac
kwards.
The stout man turned round. 'Good Heavens! It's Dorothy!' he
exclaimed.
'Why, Mr Warburton! How extraordinary! Do you know, I had a
feeling I was going to meet you today.'
'By the pricking of your thumbs, I presume?' said Mr Warburton,
beaming all over a large, pink, Micawberish face. 'And how are
you? But by Jove!' he added, 'What need is there to ask? You look
more bewitching than ever.'
He pinched Dorothy's bare elbow--she had changed, after breakfast,
into a sleeveless gingham frock. Dorothy stepped hurriedly
backwards to get out of his reach--she hated being pinched or
otherwise 'mauled about'--and said rather severely:
'PLEASE don't pinch my elbow. I don't like it.'
'My dear Dorothy, who could resist an elbow like yours? It's the
sort of elbow one pinches automatically. A reflex action, if you
understand me.'
'When did you get back to Knype Hill?' said Dorothy, who had put
her bicycle between Mr Warburton and herself. It's over two months
since I've seen you.'
'I got back the day before yesterday. But this is only a flying
visit. I'm off again tomorrow. I'm taking the kids to Brittany.
The BASTARDS, you know.'
Mr Warburton pronounced the word BASTARDS, at which Dorothy looked
away in discomfort, with a touch of naive pride. He and his
'bastards' (he had three of them) were one of the chief scandals of
Knype Hill. He was a man of independent income, calling himself a
painter--he produced about half a dozen mediocre landscapes every
year--and he had come to Knype Hill two years earlier and bought
one of the new villas behind the Rectory. There he lived, or
rather stayed periodically, in open concubinage with a woman whom
he called his housekeeper. Four months ago this woman--she was a
foreigner, a Spaniard it was said--had created a fresh and worse
scandal by abruptly deserting him, and his three children were now
parked with some long-suffering relative in London. In appearance
he was a fine, imposing-looking man, though entirely bald (he was
at great pains to conceal this), and he carried himself with such a
rakish air as to give the impression that his fairly sizeable belly
was merely a kind of annexe to his chest. His age was forty-eight,
and he owned to forty-four. People in the town said that he was a
'proper old rascal'; young girls were afraid of him, not without
reason.
Mr Warburton had laid his hand pseudo-paternally on Dorothy's
shoulder and was shepherding her through the crowd, talking all the
while almost without a pause. The Blifil-Gordon car, having
rounded the pump, was now wending its way back, still accompanied
by its troupe of middle-aged Bacchantes. Mr Warburton, his
attention caught, paused to scrutinize it.
'What is the meaning of these disgusting antics?' he asked.
'Oh, they're--what is it they call it?--electioneering. Trying to
get us to vote for them, I suppose.'
'Trying to get us to vote for them! Good God!' murmured Mr
Warburton, as he eyed the triumphal cortege. He raised the large,
silver-headed cane that he always carried, and pointed, rather
expressively, first at one figure in the procession and then at
another. 'Look at it! Just look at it! Look at those fawning
hags, and that half-witted oaf grinning at us like a monkey that
sees a bag of nuts. Did you ever see such a disgusting spectacle?'
'Do be careful!' Dorothy murmured. 'Somebody's sure to hear you.'
'Good!' said Mr Warburton, immediately raising his voice. 'And to
think that low-born hound actually has the impertinence to think
that he's pleasing us with the sight of his false teeth! And that
suit he's wearing is an offence in itself. Is there a Socialist
candidate? If so, I shall certainly vote for him.'
Several people on the pavement turned and stared. Dorothy saw
little Mr Twiss, the ironmonger, a weazened, leather-coloured old