A Clergyman's Daughter Page 5

man, peering with veiled malevolence round the corner of the rush

  baskets that hung in his doorway. He had caught the word

  Socialist, and was mentally registering Mr Warburton as a Socialist

  and Dorothy as the friend of Socialists.

  'I really MUST be getting on,' said Dorothy hastily, feeling that

  she had better escape before Mr Warburton said something even more

  tactless. 'I've got ever such a lot of shopping to do. I'll say

  good-bye for the present, then.'

  'Oh, no, you won't!' said Mr Warburton cheerfully. 'Not a bit of

  it! I'll come with you.'

  As she wheeled her bicycle down the street he marched at her side,

  still talking, with his large chest well forward and his stick

  tucked under his arm. He was a difficult man to shake off, and

  though Dorothy counted him as a friend, she did sometimes wish, he

  being the town scandal and she the Rector's daughter, that he would

  not always choose the most public places to talk to her in. At

  this moment, however, she was rather grateful for his company,

  which made it appreciably easier to pass Cargill's shop--for

  Cargill was still on his doorstep and was regarding her with a

  sidelong, meaning gaze.

  'It was a bit of luck my meeting you this morning,' Mr Warburton

  went on. 'In fact, I was looking for you. Who do you think I've

  got coming to dinner with me tonight? Bewley--Ronald Bewley.

  You've heard of him, of course?'

  'Ronald Bewley? No, I don't think so. Who is he?'

  'Why, dash it! Ronald Bewley, the novelist. Author of Fishpools

  and Concubines. Surely you've read Fishpools and Concubines?'

  'No, I'm afraid I haven't. In fact, I'd never even heard of it.'

  'My dear Dorothy! You HAVE been neglecting yourself. You

  certainly ought to read Fishpools and Concubines. It's hot stuff,

  I assure you--real high-class pornography. Just the kind of thing

  you need to take the taste of the Girl Guides out of your mouth.'

  'I do wish you wouldn't say such things!' said Dorothy, looking

  away uncomfortably, and then immediately looking back again because

  she had all but caught Cargill's eye. 'Where does this Mr Bewley

  live?' she added. 'Not here, surely, does he?'

  'No. He's coming over from Ipswich for dinner, and perhaps to stay

  the night. That's why I was looking for you. I thought you might

  like to meet him. How about your coming to dinner tonight?'

  'I can't possibly come to dinner,' said Dorothy. 'I've got

  Father's supper to see to, and thousands of other things. I shan't

  be free till eight o'clock or after.'

  'Well, come along after dinner, then. I'd like you to know Bewley.

  He's an interesting fellow--very au fait with all the Bloomsbury

  scandal, and all that. You'll enjoy meeting him. It'll do you

  good to escape from the church hen-coop for a few hours.'

  Dorothy hesitated. She was tempted. To tell the truth, she

  enjoyed her occasional visits to Mr Warburton's house extremely.

  But of course they were VERY occasional--once in three or four

  months at the oftenest; it so obviously DIDN'T DO to associate too

  freely with such a man. And even when she did go to his house she

  was careful to make sure beforehand that there was going to be at

  least one other visitor.

  Two years earlier, when Mr Warburton had first come to Knype Hill

  (at that time he was posing as a widower with two children; a

  little later, however, the housekeeper suddenly gave birth to a

  third child in the middle of the night), Dorothy had met him at a

  tea-party and afterwards called on him. Mr Warburton had given

  her a delightful tea, talked amusingly about books, and then,

  immediately after tea, sat down beside her on the sofa and begun

  making love to her, violently, outrageously, even brutally. It was

  practically an assault. Dorothy was horrified almost out of her

  wits, though not too horrified to resist. She escaped from him and

  took refuge on the other side of the sofa, white, shaking, and

  almost in tears. Mr Warburton, on the other hand, was quite

  unashamed and even seemed rather amused.

  'Oh, how could you, how could you?' she sobbed.

  'But it appears that I couldn't,' said Mr Warburton.

  'Oh, but how could you be such a brute?'

  'Oh, THAT? Easily, my child, easily. You will understand that

  when you get to my age.'

  In spite of this bad beginning, a sort of friendship had grown up

  between the two, even to the extent of Dorothy being 'talked about'

  in connexion with Mr Warburton. It did not take much to get you

  'talked about' in Knype Hill. She only saw him at long intervals

  and took the greatest care never to be alone with him, but even so

  he found opportunities of making casual love to her. But it was

  done in a gentlemanly fashion; the previous disagreeable incident

  was not repeated. Afterwards, when he was forgiven, Mr Warburton

  had explained that he 'always tried it on' with every presentable

  woman he met.

  'Don't you get rather a lot of snubs?' Dorothy could not help

  asking him.

  'Oh, certainly. But I get quite a number of successes as well, you

  know.'

  People wondered sometimes how such a girl as Dorothy could consort,

  even occasionally, with such a man as Mr Warburton; but the hold

  that he had over her was the hold that the blasphemer and evil-

  liver always has over the pious. It is a fact--you have only to

  look about you to verify it--that the pious and the immoral drift

  naturally together. The best brothel-scenes in literature have

  been written, without exception, by pious believers or pious

  unbelievers. And of course Dorothy, born into the twentieth

  century, made a point of listening to Mr Warburton's blasphemies as

  calmly as possible; it is fatal to flatter the wicked by letting

  them see that you are shocked by them. Besides, she was genuinely

  fond of him. He teased her and distressed her, and yet she got

  from him, without being fully aware of it, a species of sympathy

  and understanding which she could not get elsewhere. For all his

  vices he was distinctly likeable, and the shoddy brilliance of his

  conversation--Oscar Wilde seven times watered--which she was too

  inexperienced to see through, fascinated while it shocked her.

  Perhaps, too, in this instance, the prospect of meeting the

  celebrated Mr Bewley had its effect upon her; though certainly

  Fishponds and Concubines sounded like the kind of book that she

  either didn't read or else set herself heavy penances for reading.

  In London, no doubt, one would hardly cross the road to see fifty

  novelists; but these things appeared differently in places like

  Knype Hill.

  'Are you SURE Mr Bewley is coming?' she said.

  'Quite sure. And his wife's coming as well, I believe. Full

  chaperonage. No Tarquin and Lucrece business this evening.'

  'All right,' said Dorothy finally; 'thanks very much. I'll come

  round--about half past eight, I expect.'

  'Good. If you can manage to come while it is still daylight, so

  m
uch the better. Remember that Mrs Semprill is my next-door

  neighbour. We can count on her to be on the qui vive any time

  after sundown.'

  Mrs Semprill was the town scandalmonger--the most eminent, that is,

  of the town's many scandalmongers. Having got what he wanted (he

  was constantly pestering Dorothy to come to his house more often),

  Mr Warburton said au revoir and left Dorothy to do the remainder of

  her shopping.

  In the semi-gloom of Solepipe's shop, she was just moving away from

  the counter with her two and a half yards of casement cloth, when

  she was aware of a low, mournful voice at her ear. It was Mrs

  Semprill. She was a slender woman of forty, with a lank, sallow,

  distinguished face, which, with her glossy dark hair and air of

  settled melancholy, gave her something the appearance of a Van Dyck

  portrait. Entrenched behind a pile of cretonnes near the window,

  she had been watching Dorothy's conversation with Mr Warburton.

  Whenever you were doing something that you did not particularly

  want Mrs Semprill to see you doing, you could trust her to be

  somewhere in the neighbourhood. She seemed to have the power of

  materializing like an Arabian jinneeyeh at any place where she was

  not wanted. No indiscretion, however small, escaped her vigilance.

  Mr Warburton used to say that she was like the four beasts of the

  Apocalypse--'They are full of eyes, you remember, and they rest not

  night nor day.'

  'Dorothy DEAREST,' murmured Mrs Semprill in the sorrowful,

  affectionate voice of someone breaking a piece of bad news as

  gently as possible. 'I've been so WANTING to speak to you. I've

  something simply DREADFUL to tell you--something that will really

  HORRIFY you!'

  'What is it?' said Dorothy resignedly, well knowing what was

  coming--for Mrs Semprill had only one subject of conversation.

  They moved out of the shop and began to walk down the street,

  Dorothy wheeling her bicycle, Mrs Semprill mincing at her side with

  a delicate birdlike step and bringing her mouth closer and closer

  to Dorothy's ear as her remarks grew more and more intimate.

  'Do you happen to have noticed,' she began, 'that girl who sits at

  the end of the pew nearest the organ in church? A rather PRETTY

  girl, with red hair. I've no idea what her name is,' added Mrs

  Semprill, who knew the surname and all the Christian names of every

  man, woman, and child in Knype Hill.

  'Molly Freeman,' said Dorothy. 'She's the niece of Freeman the

  greengrocer.'

  'Oh, Molly Freeman? Is THAT her name? I'd often wondered. Well--'

  The delicate red mouth came closer, the mournful voice sank to a

  shocked whisper. Mrs Semprill began to pour forth a stream of

  purulent libel involving Molly Freeman and six young men who worked

  at the sugar-beet refinery. After a few moments the story became

  so outrageous that Dorothy, who had turned very pink, hurriedly

  withdrew her ear from Mrs Semprill's whispering lips. She stopped

  her bicycle.

  'I won't listen to such things!' she said abruptly. 'I KNOW that

  isn't true about Molly Freeman. It CAN'T be true! She's such a

  nice quiet girl--she was one of my very best Girl Guides, and she's

  always been so good about helping with the church bazaars and

  everything. I'm perfectly certain she wouldn't do such things as

  you're saying.'

  'But, Dorothy DEAREST! When, as I told you, I actually saw with my

  own eyes . . .'

  'I don't care! It's not fair to say such things about people.

  Even if they were true it wouldn't be right to repeat them.

  There's quite enough evil in the world without going about looking

  for it.'

  'LOOKING for it!' sighed Mrs Semprill. 'But, my dear Dorothy, as

  though one ever wanted or NEEDED to look! The trouble is that one

  can't HELP seeing all the dreadful wickedness that goes on in this

  town.'

  Mrs Semprill was always genuinely astonished if you accused her of

  LOOKING for subjects for scandal. Nothing, she would protest,

  pained her more than the spectacle of human wickedness; but it was

  constantly forced upon her unwilling eyes, and only a stern sense

  of duty impelled her to make it public. Dorothy's remarks, so far

  from silencing her, merely set her talking about the general

  corruption of Knype Hill, of which Molly Freeman's misbehaviour was

  only one example. And so from Molly Freeman and her six young men

  she proceeded to Dr Gaythorne, the town medical officer, who had

  got two of the nurses at the Cottage Hospital with child, and then

  to Mrs Corn, the Town Clerk's wife, found lying in a field dead

  drunk on eau-de-Cologne, and then to the curate at St Wedekind's in

  Millborough, who had involved himself in a grave scandal with a

  choirboy; and so it went on, one thing leading to another. For

  there was hardly a soul in the town or the surrounding country

  about whom Mrs Semprill could not disclose some festering secret if

  you listened to her long enough.

  It was noticeable that her stories were not only dirty and

  libellous, but they had nearly always some monstrous tinge of

  perversion about them. Compared with the ordinary scandalmongers

  of a country town, she was Freud to Boccaccio. From hearing her

  talk you would have gathered the impression that Knype Hill with

  its thousand inhabitants held more of the refinements of evil than

  Sodom, Gomorrah, and Buenos Aires put together. Indeed, when you

  reflected upon the lives led by the inhabitants of this latter-day

  City of the Plain--from the manager of the local bank squandering

  his clients' money on the children of his second and bigamous

  marriage, to the barmaid of the Dog and Bottle serving drinks in

  the taproom dressed only in high-heeled satin slippers, and from

  old Miss Channon, the music-teacher, with her secret gin bottle and

  her anonymous letters, to Maggie White, the baker's daughter, who

  had borne three children to her own brother--when you considered

  these people, all, young and old, rich and poor, sunken in

  monstrous and Babylonian vices, you wondered that fire did not come

  down from Heaven and consume the town forthwith. But if you

  listened just a little longer, the catalogue of obscenities became

  first monstrous and then unbearably dull. For in a town in which

  EVERYONE is either a bigamist, a pederast, or a drug-taker, the

  worst scandal loses its sting. In fact, Mrs Semprill was something

  worse than a slanderer; she was a bore.

  As to the extent to which her stories were believed, it varied. At

  times the word would go round that she was a foul-mouthed old cat

  and everything she said was a pack of lies; at other times one of

  her accusations would take effect on some unfortunate person, who

  would need months or even years to live it down. She had certainly

  been instrumental in breaking off not less than half a dozen

  engagements and starting innumerable quarrels between husbands and

  wives.

  All this while Dorothy had been making abortive efforts to
shake

  Mrs Semprill off. She had edged her way gradually across the

  street until she was wheeling her bicycle along the right-hand

  kerb; but Mrs Semprill had followed, whispering without cease. It

  was not until they reached the end of the High Street that Dorothy

  summoned up enough firmness to escape. She halted and put her

  right foot on the pedal of her bicycle.

  'I really can't stop a moment longer,' she said. 'I've got a

  thousand things to do, and I'm late already.'

  'Oh, but, Dorothy dear! I've something else I simply MUST tell

  you--something most IMPORTANT!'

  'I'm sorry--I'm in such a terrible hurry. Another time, perhaps.'

  'It's about that DREADFUL Mr Warburton,' said Mrs Semprill hastily,

  lest Dorothy should escape without hearing it. 'He's just come

  back from London, and do you know--I most PARTICULARLY wanted to

  tell you this--do you know, he actually--'

  But here Dorothy saw that she must make off instantly, at no matter

  what cost. She could imagine nothing more uncomfortable than to

  have to discuss Mr Warburton with Mrs Semprill. She mounted her

  bicycle, and with only a very brief 'Sorry--I really CAN'T stop!'

  began to ride hurriedly away.

  'I wanted to tell you--he's taken up with a new woman!' Mrs

  Semprill cried after her, even forgetting to whisper in her

  eagerness to pass on this juicy titbit.

  But Dorothy rode swiftly round the corner, not looking back, and

  pretending not to have heard. An unwise thing to do, for it did

  not pay to cut Mrs Semprill too short. Any unwillingness to listen

  to her scandals was taken as a sign of depravity, and led to fresh

  and worse scandals being published about yourself the moment you

  had left her.

  As Dorothy rode homewards she had uncharitable thoughts about Mrs

  Semprill, for which she duly pinched herself. Also, there was

  another, rather disturbing idea which had not occurred to her till

  this moment--that Mrs Semprill would certainly learn of her visit

  to Mr Warburton's house this evening, and would probably have

  magnified it into something scandalous by tomorrow. The thought

  sent a vague premonition of evil through Dorothy's mind as she

  jumped off her bicycle at the Rectory gate, where Silly Jack, the

  town idiot, a third-grade moron with a triangular scarlet face like

  a strawberry, was loitering, vacantly flogging the gatepost with a

  hazel switch.

  4

  It was a little after eleven. The day, which, like some overripe

  but hopeful widow playing at seventeen, had been putting on

  unseasonable April airs, had now remembered that it was August and

  settled down to be boiling hot.

  Dorothy rode into the hamlet of Fennelwick, a mile out of Knype

  Hill. She had delivered Mrs Lewin's corn-plaster, and was dropping

  in to give old Mrs Pither that cutting from the Daily Mail about

  angelica tea for rheumatism. The sun, burning in the cloudless

  sky, scorched her back through her gingham frock, and the dusty

  road quivered in the heat, and the hot, flat meadows, over which

  even at this time of year numberless larks chirruped tiresomely,

  were so green that it hurt your eyes to look at them. It was the

  kind of day that is called 'glorious' by people who don't have to

  work.

  Dorothy leaned her bicycle against the gate of the Pithers'

  cottage, and took her handkerchief out of her bag and wiped her

  hands, which were sweating from the handle-bars. In the harsh

  sunlight her face looked pinched and colourless. She looked her

  age, and something over, at that hour of the morning. Throughout

  her day--and in general it was a seventeen-hour day--she had

  regular, alternating periods of tiredness and energy; the middle of

  the morning, when she was doing the first instalment of the day's

  'visiting', was one of the tired periods.

  'Visiting', because of the distances she had to bicycle from house