A Clergyman's Daughter Page 6

to house, took up nearly half of Dorothy's day. Every day of her

  life, except on Sundays, she made from half a dozen to a dozen

  visits at parishioners' cottages. She penetrated into cramped

  interiors and sat on lumpy, dust-diffusing chairs gossiping with

  overworked, blowsy housewives; she spent hurried half-hours giving

  a hand with the mending and the ironing, and read chapters from the

  Gospels, and readjusted bandages on 'bad legs', and condoled with

  sufferers from morning-sickness; she played ride-a-cock-horse with

  sour-smelling children who grimed the bosom of her dress with their

  sticky little fingers; she gave advice about ailing aspidistras,

  and suggested names for babies, and drank 'nice cups of tea'

  innumerable--for the working women always wanted her to have a

  'nice cup of tea', out of the teapot endlessly stewing.

  Much of it was profoundly discouraging work. Few, very few, of the

  women seemed to have even a conception of the Christian life that

  she was trying to help them to lead. Some of them were shy and

  suspicious, stood on the defensive, and made excuses when urged to

  come to Holy Communion; some shammed piety for the sake of the tiny

  sums they could wheedle out of the church alms box; those who

  welcomed her coming were for the most part the talkative ones, who

  wanted an audience for complaints about the 'goings on' of their

  husbands, or for endless mortuary tales ('And he had to have glass

  chubes let into his veins,' etc., etc.) about the revolting

  diseases their relatives had died of. Quite half the women on her

  list, Dorothy knew, were at heart atheistical in a vague

  unreasoning way. She came up against it all day long--that vague,

  blank disbelief so common in illiterate people, against which all

  argument is powerless. Do what she would, she could never raise

  the number of regular communicants to more than a dozen or

  thereabouts. Women would promise to communicate, keep their

  promise for a month or two, and then fall away. With the younger

  women it was especially hopeless. They would not even join the

  local branches of the church leagues that were run for their

  benefit--Dorothy was honorary secretary of three such leagues,

  besides being captain of the Girl Guides. The Band of Hope and the

  Companionship of Marriage languished almost memberless, and the

  Mothers' Union only kept going because gossip and unlimited strong

  tea made the weekly sewing-parties acceptable. Yes, it was

  discouraging work; so discouraging that at times it would have

  seemed altogether futile if she had not known the sense of futility

  for what it is--the subtlest weapon of the Devil.

  Dorothy knocked at the Pithers' badly fitting door, from beneath

  which a melancholy smell of boiled cabbage and dish-water was

  oozing. From long experience she knew and could taste in advance

  the individual smell of every cottage on her rounds. Some of their

  smells were peculiar in the extreme. For instance, there was the

  salty, feral smell that haunted the cottage of old Mr Tombs, an

  aged retired bookseller who lay in bed all day in a darkened room,

  with his long, dusty nose and pebble spectacles protruding from

  what appeared to be a fur rug of vast size and richness.

  But if you put your hand on the fur rug it disintegrated, burst and

  fled in all directions. It was composed entirely of cats--twenty-

  four cats, to be exact. Mr Tombs 'found they kept him warm', he

  used to explain. In nearly all the cottages there was a basic

  smell of old overcoats and dish-water upon which the other,

  individual smells were superimposed; the cesspool smell, the

  cabbage smell, the smell of children, the strong, bacon-like reek

  of corduroys impregnated with the sweat of a decade.

  Mrs Pither opened the door, which invariably stuck to the jamb, and

  then, when you wrenched it open, shook the whole cottage. She was

  a large, stooping, grey woman with wispy grey hair, a sacking

  apron, and shuffling carpet slippers.

  'Why, if it isn't Miss Dorothy!' she exclaimed in a dreary,

  lifeless but not unaffectionate voice.

  She took Dorothy between her large, gnarled hands, whose knuckles

  were as shiny as skinned onions from age and ceaseless washing up,

  and gave her a wet kiss. Then she drew her into the unclean

  interior of the cottage.

  'Pither's away at work, Miss,' she announced as they got inside.

  'Up to Dr Gaythorne's he is, a-digging over the doctor's flower-

  beds for him.'

  Mr Pither was a jobbing gardener. He and his wife, both of them

  over seventy, were one of the few genuinely pious couples on

  Dorothy's visiting list. Mrs Pither led a dreary, wormlike life of

  shuffling to and fro, with a perpetual crick in her neck because

  the door lintels were too low for her, between the well, the sink,

  the fireplace, and the tiny plot of kitchen garden. The kitchen

  was decently tidy, but oppressively hot, evil-smelling and

  saturated with ancient dust. At the end opposite the fireplace Mrs

  Pither had made a kind of prie-dieu out of a greasy rag mat laid in

  front of a tiny, defunct harmonium, on top of which were an

  oleographed crucifixion, 'Watch and Pray' done in beadwork, and a

  photograph of Mr and Mrs Pither on their wedding day in 1882.

  'Poor Pither!' went on Mrs Pither in her depressing voice, 'him a-

  digging at his age, with his rheumatism THAT bad! Ain't it cruel

  hard, Miss? And he's had a kind of a pain between his legs, Miss,

  as he can't seem to account for--terrible bad he's been with it,

  these last few mornings. Ain't it bitter hard, Miss, the lives us

  poor working folks has to lead?'

  'It's a shame,' said Dorothy. 'But I hope you've been keeping a

  little better yourself, Mrs Pither?'

  'Ah, Miss, there's nothing don't make ME better. I ain't a case

  for curing, not in THIS world, I ain't. I shan't never get no

  better, not in this wicked world down here.'

  'Oh, you mustn't say that, Mrs Pither! I hope we shall have you

  with us for a long time yet.'

  'Ah, Miss, you don't know how poorly I've been this last week!

  I've had the rheumatism a-coming and a-going all down the backs of

  my poor old legs, till there's some mornings when I don't feel as I

  can't walk so far as to pull a handful of onions in the garden.

  Ah, Miss, it's a weary world we lives in, ain't it, Miss? A weary,

  sinful world.'

  'But of course we must never forget, Mrs Pither, that there's a

  better world coming. This life is only a time of trial--just to

  strengthen us and teach us to be patient, so that we'll be ready

  for Heaven when the time comes.'

  At this a sudden and remarkable change came over Mrs Pither. It

  was produced by the word 'Heaven'. Mrs Pither had only two

  subjects of conversation; one of them was the joys of Heaven, and

  the other the miseries of her present state. Dorothy's remark

  seemed to act upon her like a charm. Her dull grey eye was not

  capable of brightening, but her voice quickened with an almost

  jo
yful enthusiasm.

  'Ah, Miss, there you said it! That's a true word, Miss! That's

  what Pither and me keeps a-saying to ourselves. And that's just

  the one thing as keeps us a-going--just the thought of Heaven and

  the long, long rest we'll have there. Whatever we've suffered, we

  gets it all back in Heaven, don't we, Miss? Every little bit of

  suffering, you gets it back a hundredfold and a thousandfold. That

  IS true, ain't it, Miss? There's rest for us all in Heaven--rest

  and peace and no more rheumatism nor digging nor cooking nor

  laundering nor nothing. You DO believe that, don't you, Miss

  Dorothy?'

  'Of course,' said Dorothy.

  'Ah, Miss, if you knew how it comforts us--just the thoughts of

  Heaven! Pither he says to me, when he comes home tired of a night

  and our rheumatism's bad, "Never you mind, my dear," he says, "we

  ain't far off Heaven now," he says. "Heaven was made for the likes

  of us," he says; "just for poor working folks like us, that have

  been sober and godly and kept our Communions regular." That's the

  best way, ain't it, Miss Dorothy--poor in this life and rich in the

  next? Not like some of them rich folks as all their motorcars and

  their beautiful houses won't save from the worm that dieth not and

  the fire that's not quenched. Such a beautiful text, that is. Do

  you think you could say a little prayer with me, Miss Dorothy? I

  been looking forward all the morning to a little prayer.

  Mrs Pither was always ready for a 'little prayer' at any hour of

  the night or day. It was her equivalent to a 'nice cup of tea'.

  They knelt down on the rag mat and said the Lord's Prayer and the

  Collect for the week; and then Dorothy, at Mrs Pither's request,

  read the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Mrs Pither coming in from

  time to time with 'Amen! That's a true word, ain't it, Miss

  Dorothy? "And he was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom."

  Beautiful! Oh, I do call that just too beautiful! Amen, Miss

  Dorothy--Amen!'

  Dorothy gave Mrs Pither the cutting from the Daily Mail about

  angelica tea for rheumatism, and then, finding that Mrs Pither had

  been too 'poorly' to draw the day's supply of water, she drew three

  bucketfuls for her from the well. It was a very deep well, with

  such a low parapet that Mrs Pither's final doom would almost

  certainly be to fall into it and get drowned, and it had not even a

  winch--you had to haul the bucket up hand over hand. And then they

  sat down for a few minutes, and Mrs Pither talked some more about

  Heaven. It was extraordinary how constantly Heaven reigned in her

  thoughts; and more extraordinary yet was the actuality, the

  vividness with which she could see it. The golden streets and the

  gates of orient pearl were as real to her as though they had been

  actually before her eyes. And her vision extended to the most

  concrete, the most earthly details. The softness of the beds up

  there! The deliciousness of the food! The lovely silk clothes

  that you would put on clean every morning! The surcease from

  everlasting to everlasting from work of any description! In almost

  every moment of her life the vision of Heaven supported and

  consoled her, and her abject complaints about the lives of 'poor

  working folks' were curiously tempered by a satisfaction in the

  thought that, after all, it is 'poor working folks' who are the

  principal inhabitants of Heaven. It was a sort of bargain that she

  had struck, setting her lifetime of dreary labour against an

  eternity of bliss. Her faith was almost TOO great, if that is

  possible. For it was a curious fact, but the certitude with which

  Mrs Pither looked forward to Heaven--as to some kind of glorified

  home for incurables--affected Dorothy with strange uneasiness.

  Dorothy prepared to depart, while Mrs Pither thanked her, rather

  too effusively, for her visit, winding up, as usual, with fresh

  complaints about her rheumatism.

  'I'll be sure and take the angelica tea,' she concluded, 'and thank

  you kindly for telling me of it, Miss. Not as I don't expect as

  it'll do me much good. Ah, Miss, if you knew how cruel bad my

  rheumatism's been this last week! All down the backs of my legs,

  it is, like a regular shooting red-hot poker, and I don't seem to

  be able to get at them to rub them properly. Would it be asking

  too much of you, Miss, to give me a bit of a rub-down before you

  go? I got a bottle of Elliman's under the sink.'

  Unseen by Mrs Pither, Dorothy gave herself a severe pinch. She had

  been expecting this, and--she had done it so many times before--she

  really did NOT enjoy rubbing Mrs Pither down. She exhorted herself

  angrily. Come on, Dorothy! No sniffishness, please! John xiii,

  14. 'Of course I will, Mrs Pither!' she said instantly.

  They went up the narrow, rickety staircase, in which you had to

  bend almost double at one place to avoid the overhanging ceiling.

  The bedroom was lighted by a tiny square of window that was jammed

  in its socket by the creeper outside, and had not been opened in

  twenty years. There was an enormous double bed that almost filled

  the room, with sheets perennially damp and a flock mattress as full

  of hills and valleys as a contour map of Switzerland. With many

  groans the old woman crept on to the bed and laid herself face

  down. The room reeked of urine and paregoric. Dorothy took the

  bottle of Elliman's embrocation and carefully anointed Mrs Pither's

  large, grey-veined, flaccid legs.

  Outside, in the swimming heat, she mounted her bicycle and began to

  ride swiftly homewards. The sun burned in her face, but the air

  now seemed sweet and fresh. She was happy, happy! She was always

  extravagantly happy when her morning's 'visiting' was over; and,

  curiously enough, she was not aware of the reason for this. In

  Borlase the dairy-farmer's meadow the red cows were grazing, knee-

  deep in shining seas of grass. The scent of cows, like a

  distillation of vanilla and fresh hay, floated into Dorothy's

  nostrils. Though she had still a morning's work in front of her

  she could not resist the temptation to loiter for a moment,

  steadying her bicycle with one hand against the gate of Borlase's

  meadow, while a cow, with moist shell-pink nose, scratched its chin

  upon the gatepost and dreamily regarded her.

  Dorothy caught sight of a wild rose, flowerless of course, growing

  beyond the hedge, and climbed over the gate with the intention of

  discovering whether it were not sweetbriar. She knelt down among

  the tall weeds beneath the hedge. It was very hot down there,

  close to the ground. The humming of many unseen insects sounded in

  her ears, and the hot summery fume from the tangled swathes of

  vegetation flowed up and enveloped her. Near by, tall stalks of

  fennel were growing, with trailing fronds of foliage like the tails

  of sea-green horses. Dorothy pulled a frond of the fennel against

  her face and breathed in the strong sweet scent. Its richness

  overwhelmed her, almost dizzied her for
a moment. She drank it in,

  filling her lungs with it. Lovely, lovely scent--scent of summer

  days, scent of childhood joys, scent of spice-drenched islands in

  the warm foam of Oriental seas!

  Her heart swelled with sudden joy. It was that mystical joy in

  the beauty of the earth and the very nature of things that she

  recognized, perhaps mistakenly, as the love of God. As she knelt

  there in the heat, the sweet odour and the drowsy hum of insects,

  it seemed to her that she could momentarily hear the mighty anthem

  of praise that the earth and all created things send up

  everlastingly to their maker. All vegetation, leaves, flowers,

  grass, shining, vibrating, crying out in their joy. Larks also

  chanting, choirs of larks invisible, dripping music from the sky.

  All the riches of summer, the warmth of the earth, the song of

  birds, the fume of cows, the droning of countless bees, mingling

  and ascending like the smoke of ever-burning altars. Therefore

  with Angels and Archangels! She began to pray, and for a moment

  she prayed ardently, blissfully, forgetting herself in the joy of

  her worship. Then, less than a minute later, she discovered that

  she was kissing the frond of the fennel that was still against her

  face.

  She checked herself instantly, and drew back. What was she doing?

  Was it God that she was worshipping, or was it only the earth?

  The joy ebbed out of her heart, to be succeeded by the cold,

  uncomfortable feeling that she had been betrayed into a half-pagan

  ecstasy. She admonished herself. None of THAT, Dorothy! No

  Nature-worship, please! Her father had warned her against Nature-

  worship. She had heard him preach more than one sermon against it;

  it was, he said, mere pantheism, and, what seemed to offend him

  even more, a disgusting modern fad. Dorothy took a thorn of the

  wild rose, and pricked her arm three times, to remind herself of

  the Three Persons of the Trinity, before climbing over the gate and

  remounting her bicycle.

  A black, very dusty shovel hat was approaching round the corner of

  the hedge. It was Father McGuire, the Roman Catholic priest, also

  bicycling his rounds. He was a very large, rotund man, so large

  that he dwarfed the bicycle beneath him and seemed to be balanced

  on top of it like a golf-ball on a tee. His face was rosy,

  humorous, and a little sly.

  Dorothy looked suddenly unhappy. She turned pink, and her hand

  moved instinctively to the neighbourhood of the gold cross beneath

  her dress. Father McGuire was riding towards her with an

  untroubled, faintly amused air. She made an endeavour to smile,

  and murmured unhappily, 'Good morning.' But he rode on without a

  sign; his eyes swept easily over her face and then beyond her into

  vacancy, with an admirable pretence of not having noticed her

  existence. It was the Cut Direct. Dorothy--by nature, alas!

  unequal to delivering the Cut Direct--got on to her bicycle and

  rode away, struggling with the uncharitable thoughts which a

  meeting with Father McGuire never failed to arouse in her.

  Five or six years earlier, when Father McGuire was holding a

  funeral in St Athelstan's churchyard (there was no Roman Catholic

  cemetery at Knype Hill), there had been some dispute with the

  Rector about the propriety of Father McGuire robing in the church,

  or not robing in the church, and the two priests had wrangled

  disgracefully over the open grave. Since then they had not been on

  speaking terms. It was better so, the Rector said.

  As to the other ministers of religion in Knype Hill--Mr Ward the

  Congregationalist minister, Mr Foley the Wesleyan pastor, and the

  braying bald-headed elder who conducted the orgies at Ebenezer

  Chapel--the Rector called them a pack of vulgar Dissenters and had

  forbidden Dorothy on pain of his displeasure to have anything to do

  with them.

  5

  It was twelve o'clock. In the large, dilapidated conservatory,

  whose roof-panes, from the action of time and dirt, were dim,