A Clergyman's Daughter Page 4

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-

  busting underneath 'em.'

  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

  Socialist and Communist. 'Well, Proggett,' she said, immediately

  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