A Clergyman's Daughter Read online

have you managed to remain unmarried all these years?'

  'Let me go at once!' repeated Dorothy, beginning to struggle again.

  'But I don't particularly want to let you go,' objected Mr

  Warburton.

  'PLEASE don't stroke my arm like that! I don't like it!'

  'What a curious child you are! Why don't you like it?'

  'I tell you I don't like it!'

  'Now don't go and turn round,' said Mr Warburton mildly. 'You

  don't seem to realize how tactful it was on my part to approach you

  from behind your back. If you turn round you'll see that I'm old

  enough to be your father, and hideously bald into the bargain. But

  if you'll only keep still and not look at me you can imagine I'm

  Ivor Novello.'

  Dorothy caught sight of the hand that was caressing her--a large,

  pink, very masculine hand, with thick fingers and a fleece of gold

  hairs upon the back. She turned very pale; the expression of her

  face altered from mere annoyance to aversion and dread. She made a

  violent effort, wrenched herself free, and stood up, facing him.

  'I DO wish you wouldn't do that!' she said, half in anger and half

  in distress.

  'What is the matter with you?' said Mr Warburton.

  He had stood upright, in his normal pose, entirely unconcerned, and

  he looked at her with a touch of curiosity. Her face had changed.

  It was not only that she had turned pale; there was a withdrawn,

  half-frightened look in her eyes--almost as though, for the moment,

  she were looking at him with the eyes of a stranger. He perceived

  that he had wounded her in some way which he did not understand,

  and which perhaps she did not want him to understand.

  'What is the matter with you?' he repeated.

  'WHY must you do that every time you meet me?'

  '"Every time I meet you" is an exaggeration,' said Mr Warburton.

  'It's really very seldom that I get the opportunity. But if you

  really and truly don't like it--'

  'Of course I don't like it! You know I don't like it!'

  'Well, well! Then let's say no more about it,' said Mr Warburton

  generously. 'Sit down, and we'll change the subject.'

  He was totally devoid of shame. It was perhaps his most outstanding

  characteristic. Having attempted to seduce her, and failed, he was

  quite willing to go on with the conversation as though nothing

  whatever had happened.

  'I'm going home at once,' said Dorothy. 'I can't stay here any

  longer.'

  'Oh nonsense! Sit down and forget about it. We'll talk of moral

  theology, or cathedral architecture, or the Girl Guides' cooking

  classes, or anything you choose. Think how bored I shall be all

  alone if you go home at this hour.'

  But Dorothy persisted, and there was an argument. Even if it had

  not been his intention to make love to her--and whatever he might

  promise he would certainly begin again in a few minutes if she did

  not go--Mr Warburton would have pressed her to stay, for, like all

  thoroughly idle people, he had a horror of going to bed and no

  conception of the value of time. He would, if you let him, keep

  you talking till three or four in the morning. Even when Dorothy

  finally escaped, he walked beside her down the moonlit drive, still

  talking voluminously and with such perfect good humour that she

  found it impossible to be angry with him any longer.

  'I'm leaving first thing tomorrow,' he told her as they reached the

  gate. 'I'm going to take the car to town and pick up the kids--the

  BASTARDS, you know--and we're leaving for France the next day. I'm

  not certain where we shall go after that; eastern Europe, perhaps.

  Prague, Vienna, Bucharest.'

  'How nice,' said Dorothy.

  Mr Warburton, with an adroitness surprising in so large and stout a

  man, had manoeuvred himself between Dorothy and the gate.

  'I shall be away six months or more,' he said. 'And of course I

  needn't ask, before so long a parting, whether you want to kiss me

  good-bye?'

  Before she knew what he was doing he had put his arm about her and

  drawn her against him. She drew back--too late; he kissed her on

  the cheek--would have kissed her on the mouth if she had not turned

  her head away in time. She struggled in his arms, violently and

  for a moment helplessly.

  'Oh, let me go!' she cried. 'DO let me go!'

  'I believe I pointed out before,' said Mr Warburton, holding her

  easily against him, 'that I don't want to let you go.'

  'But we're standing right in front of Mrs Semprill's window!

  She'll see us absolutely for certain!'

  'Oh, good God! So she will!' said Mr Warburton. 'I was forgetting.'

  Impressed by this argument, as he would not have been by any other,

  he let Dorothy go. She promptly put the gate between Mr Warburton

  and herself. He, meanwhile, was scrutinizing Mrs Semprill's

  windows.

  'I can't see a light anywhere,' he said finally. 'With any luck

  the blasted hag hasn't seen us.'

  'Good-bye,' said Dorothy briefly. 'This time I really MUST go.

  Remember me to the children.'

  With this she made off as fast as she could go without actually

  running, to get out of his reach before he should attempt to kiss

  her again.

  Even as she did so a sound checked her for an instant--the

  unmistakable bang of a window shutting, somewhere in Mrs Semprill's

  house. Could Mrs Semprill have been watching them after all? But

  (reflected Dorothy) of COURSE she had been watching them! What

  else could you expect? You could hardly imagine Mrs Semprill

  missing such a scene as that. And if she HAD been watching them,

  undoubtedly the story would be all over the town tomorrow morning,

  and it would lose nothing in the telling. But this thought,

  sinister though it was, did no more than flight momentarily through

  Dorothy's mind as she hurried down the road.

  When she was well out of sight of Mr Warburton's house she stopped,

  took out her handkerchief and scrubbed the place on her cheek where

  he had kissed her. She scrubbed it vigorously enough to bring the

  blood into her cheek. It was not until she had quite rubbed out

  the imaginary stain which his lips had left there that she walked

  on again.

  What he had done had upset her. Even now her heart was knocking

  and fluttering uncomfortably. I can't BEAR that kind of thing! she

  repeated to herself several times over. And unfortunately this was

  no more than the literal truth; she really could not bear it. To

  be kissed or fondled by a man--to feel heavy male arms about her

  and thick male lips bearing down upon her own--was terrifying and

  repulsive to her. Even in memory or imagination it made her wince.

  It was her especial secret, the especial, incurable disability that

  she carried through life.

  If only they would leave you ALONE! she thought as she walked

  onwards a little more slowly. That was how she put it to herself

  habitually--'If only they would leave you ALONE!' For it was not

  that in other ways she disliked men. On the contrary, she liked

  them be
tter than women. Part of Mr Warburton's hold over her was

  in the fact that he was a man and had the careless good humour and

  the intellectual largeness that women so seldom have. But why

  couldn't they leave you ALONE? Why did they always have to kiss

  you and maul you about? They were dreadful when they kissed you--

  dreadful and a little disgusting, like some large, furry beast that

  rubs itself against you, all too friendly and yet liable to turn

  dangerous at any moment. And beyond their kissing and mauling

  there lay always the suggestion of those other, monstrous things

  ('ALL THAT' was her name for them) of which she could hardly even

  bear to think.

  Of course, she had had her share, and rather more than her share,

  of casual attention from men. She was just pretty enough, and just

  plain enough, to be the kind of girl that men habitually pester.

  For when a man wants a little casual amusement, he usually picks

  out a girl who is not TOO pretty. Pretty girls (so he reasons) are

  spoilt and therefore capricious; but plain girls are easy game.

  And even if you are a clergyman's daughter, even if you live in a

  town like Knype Hill and spend almost your entire life in parish

  work, you don't altogether escape pursuit. Dorothy was all too

  used to it--all too used to the fattish middle-aged men, with their

  fishily hopeful eyes, who slowed down their cars when you passed

  them on the road, or who manoeuvred an introduction and then began

  pinching your elbow about ten minutes afterwards. Men of all

  descriptions. Even a clergyman, on one occasion--a bishop's

  chaplain, he was. . . .

  But the trouble was that it was not better, but oh! infinitely

  worse when they were the right kind of man and the advances they

  made you were honourable. Her mind slipped backwards five years,

  to Francis Moon, curate in those days at St Wedekind's in

  Millborough. Dear Francis! How gladly would she have married him

  if only it had not been for ALL THAT! Over and over again he had

  asked her to marry him, and of course she had had to say No; and,

  equally of course, he had never known why. Impossible to tell him

  why. And then he had gone away, and only a year later had died so

  irrelevantly of pneumonia. She whispered a prayer for his soul,

  momentarily forgetting that her father did not really approve of

  prayers for the dead, and then, with an effort, pushed the memory

  aside. Ah, better not to think of it again! It hurt her in her

  breast to think of it.

  She could never marry, she had decided long ago upon that. Even

  when she was a child she had known it. Nothing would ever overcome

  her horror of ALL THAT--at the very thought of it something within

  her seemed to shrink and freeze. And of course, in a sense she did

  not want to overcome it. For, like all abnormal people, she was

  not fully aware that she was abnormal.

  And yet, though her sexual coldness seemed to her natural and

  inevitable, she knew well enough how it was that it had begun. She

  could remember, as clearly as though it were yesterday, certain

  dreadful scenes between her father and her mother--scenes that she

  had witnessed when she was no more than nine years old. They had

  left a deep, secret wound in her mind. And then a little later she

  had been frightened by some old steel engravings of nymphs pursued

  by satyrs. To her childish mind there was something inexplicably,

  horribly sinister in those horned, semi-human creatures that lurked

  in thickets and behind large trees, ready to come bounding forth in

  sudden swift pursuit. For a whole year of her childhood she had

  actually been afraid to walk through woods alone, for fear of

  satyrs. She had grown out of the fear, of course, but not out of

  the feeling that was associated with it. The satyr had remained

  with her as a symbol. Perhaps she would never grow out of it, that

  special feeling of dread, of hopeless flight from something more

  than rationally dreadful--the stamp of hooves in the lonely wood,

  the lean, furry thighs of the satyr. It was a thing not to be

  altered, not to be argued away. It is, moreover, a thing too

  common nowadays, among educated women, to occasion any kind of

  surprise.

  Most of Dorothy's agitation had disappeared by the time she reached

  the rectory. The thoughts of satyrs and Mr Warburton, of Francis

  Moon and her foredoomed sterility, which had been going to and fro

  in her mind, faded out of it and were replaced by the accusing

  image of a jackboot. She remembered that she had the best part of

  two hours' work to do before going to bed tonight. The house was

  in darkness. She went round to the back and slipped in on tiptoe

  by the scullery door, for fear of waking her father, who was

  probably asleep already.

  As she felt her way through the dark passage to the conservatory,

  she suddenly decided that she had gone wrong in going to Mr

  Warburton's house tonight. She would, she resolved, never go there

  again, even when she was certain that somebody else would be there

  as well. Moreover, she would do penance tomorrow for having gone

  there tonight. Having lighted the lamp, before doing anything else

  she found her 'memo list', which was already written out for

  tomorrow, and pencilled a capital P against 'breakfast', P stood

  for penance--no bacon again for breakfast tomorrow. Then she

  lighted the oilstove under the glue-pot.

  The light of the lamp fell yellow upon her sewing-machine and upon

  the pile of half-finished clothes on the table, reminding her of

  the yet greater pile of clothes that were not even begun; reminding

  her, also, that she was dreadfully, overwhelmingly tired. She had

  forgotten her tiredness at the moment when Mr Warburton laid his

  hands on her shoulders, but now it had come back upon her with

  double force. Moreover, there was a somehow exceptional quality

  about her tiredness tonight. She felt, in an almost literal sense

  of the words, washed out. As she stood beside the table she had a

  sudden, very strange feeling as though her mind had been entirely

  emptied, so that for several seconds she actually forgot what it

  was that she had come into the conservatory to do.

  Then she remembered--the jackboots, of course! Some contemptible

  little demon whispered in her ear, 'Why not go straight to bed and

  leave the jackboots till tomorrow?' She uttered a prayer for

  strength, and pinched herself. Come on, Dorothy! No slacking

  please! Luke ix, 62. Then, clearing some of the litter off the

  table, she got out her scissors, a pencil, and four sheets of brown

  paper, and sat down to cut out those troublesome insteps for the

  jackboots while the glue was boiling.

  When the grandfather clock in her father's study struck midnight

  she was still at work. She had shaped both jackboots by this time,

  and was reinforcing them by pasting narrow strips of paper all over

  them--a long, messy job. Every bone in her body was aching, and

  her eyes were sticky with sleep. Indee
d, it was only rather dimly

  that she remembered what she was doing. But she worked on,

  mechanically pasting strip after strip of paper into place, and

  pinching herself every two minutes to counteract the hypnotic sound

  of the oilstove singing beneath the glue-pot.

  CHAPTER 2

  1

  Out of a black, dreamless sleep, with the sense of being drawn

  upwards through enormous and gradually lightening abysses, Dorothy

  awoke to a species of consciousness.

  Her eyes were still closed. By degrees, however, their lids became

  less opaque to the light, and then flickered open of their own

  accord. She was looking out upon a street--a shabby, lively street

  of small shops and narrow-faced houses, with streams of men, trams,

  and cars passing in either direction.

  But as yet it could not properly be said that she was LOOKING. For

  the things she saw were not apprehended as men, trams, and cars,

  nor as anything in particular; they were not even apprehended as

  things moving; not even as THINGS. She merely SAW, as an animal

  sees, without speculation and almost without consciousness. The

  noises of the street--the confused din of voices, the hooting of

  horns and the scream of the trams grinding on their gritty rails--

  flowed through her head provoking purely physical responses. She

  had no words, nor any conception of the purpose of such things as

  words, nor any consciousness of time or place, or of her own body

  or even of her own existence.

  Nevertheless, by degrees her perceptions became sharper. The

  stream of moving things began to penetrate beyond her eyes and sort

  themselves out into separate images in her brain. She began, still

  wordlessly, to observe the shapes of things. A long-shaped thing

  swam past, supported on four other, narrower long-shaped things,

  and drawing after it a square-shaped thing balanced on two circles.

  Dorothy watched it pass; and suddenly, as though spontaneously, a

  word flashed into her mind. The word was 'horse'. It faded, but

  returned presently in the more complex form: 'THAT IS A HORSE.'

  Other words followed--'house', 'street', 'tram', 'car', 'bicycle'--

  until in a few minutes she had found a name for almost everything

  within sight. She discovered the words 'man' and 'woman', and,

  speculating upon these words, discovered that she knew the

  difference between living and inanimate things, and between human

  beings and horses, and between men and women.

  It was only now, after becoming aware of most of the things about

  her, that she became aware of HERSELF. Hitherto she had been as it

  were a pair of eyes with a receptive but purely impersonal brain

  behind them. But now, with a curious little shock, she discovered

  her separate and unique existence; she could FEEL herself existing;

  it was as though something within her were exclaiming 'I am I!'

  Also, in some way she knew that this 'I' had existed and been the

  same from remote periods in the past, though it was a past of which

  she had no remembrance.

  But it was only for a moment that this discovery occupied her.

  From the first there was a sense of incompleteness in it, of

  something vaguely unsatisfactory. And it was this: the 'I am I'

  which had seemed an answer had itself become a question. It was no

  longer 'I am I', but 'WHO am I'?

  WHO WAS SHE? She turned the question over in her mind, and found

  that she had not the dimmest notion of who she was; except that,

  watching the people and horses passing, she grasped that she was a

  human being and not a horse. And that the question altered itself

  and took this form: 'Am I a man or a woman?' Again neither

  feeling nor memory gave any clue to the answer. But at that

  moment, by accident possibly, her finger-tips brushed against her

  body. She realized more clearly than before that her body existed,

  and that it was her own--that it was, in fact, herself. She began