Day's End and Other Stories (24 page)

His questions about the trees and flowers she recollected too. All the thoughts which in his stupidity he had not expressed she shaped for herself
in her heart, as she might imagine the soft shades of unopened flowers.

And it seemed that as she would wait for the elms to flower, snow down their redness, scatter their green and be draped in leaves at last, so she was waiting for his changes, his blossoming. And she doted constantly over what this blossoming should bring, and saw him no longer as a frightened, questioning mite carried on her bicycle, but as a youth, strong, virtuous, and clever, and as a man, throwing unconsciously over her the mellow shadow of maturity.

Sometimes, if she reflected thus, the ascent of the hill would seem over in a second, and almost before aware of it she would find herself pushing open the swinging white gate, wheeling the bicycle past the snaky crocus borders, and resting it against the wall.

On the wall, under the south sky, had been set a plum-tree, crucified like some weak, lank spider. Francie had planted it for the boy's birthday. She cared lavishly for it. Every morning she set the bicycle clear of it, and when she saw it was needed, broke off dead twigs and nailed up loose ones, as if to crucify it yet more securely.

Here, as when on the bicycle and when struggling up the hill, she dwelt on her devotion to the boy, her face, like some large pink and white melon, shining at the thought of him. Like his her eyes glowed as if clouded with bloom. Sometimes about the house she sang with a soft, floating soprano, and would be
reminded then of the days when she had really sung, taking the solo-parts in oratorio, and singing once at the Crystal Palace, in London, in a choir of five thousand voices. Then it would be her fervent wish that the boy might become a singer, too.

After this she thought: ‘Soon I ought to have his voice tested. I must let some one hear it! I must think of his future.'

One night, before tenderly pressing his head into the warm camphor-smelling pillow, she actually took courage and asked him to sing.

He raised his head and stared. ‘Sing?' His eyes gleamed duller than ever with their sombre bloom. ‘Why must I?'

‘I want to hear you – for something. Sing, my darling! Then some day perhaps you will sing in opera, or at least like mummy did, in London, in a choir of five thousand people! And mummy would like that.'

But the boy put his face to the pillow and pouted his fat lips, oozing stupidity. Francie rested her flabby cheeks on his and kissed him slobberingly, and when he had gone to sleep wept over him for both misery and joy.

In the morning, however, as they flew down the hill, she sang tremulously, like a bird wondering if spring has come, the notes of her soft, reedy soprano floating in the air like irresponsible feathers. Above her the sky curved gently and softly, resting itself like a giant blue petal on the green rims of the wide,
sunny world. Larks sang everywhere and she thought: ‘How happy I am!' This morning she did not put on the brakes. The bicycle swooped like an arrow into the soft drifts of elm-blossom under the trees.

There again the boy asked: ‘What is it? I forgot what you said.'

She almost sang in reply: ‘The elms are coming into blossom! I told you yesterday! Into blossom, into flower!'

The bicycle sailed on, and then again his voice asked: ‘Why do they?'

But to all his stupidity and forgetfulness she was tenderly blind, once again imagining all the things he might have said, her thoughts coloured like flowers. When returning she lifted her face to the spring sky, drank from its cascade of sweet, gold spice, and felt within her the soul of the boy softly move, gladden and blossom with her own.

Then, soon afterwards, in the avenue, the elms, instead of red blossom, began to shower down their second flowers, like a storm of green confetti. Every day Francie told the boy what this meant, and showed him also the poplars and elms, the oaks and beeches, the birches and pines. And every night, into his stupid face she put her own, simple, moon-like and soft, and whispered:

‘Sing, my darling. Some day you may sing in opera, in a big hall, or like mummy did, in a choir so big no one will know who you are.'

And in the avenue the poplars became swaying steeples of green, stroking the sky, and on the south wall, crucified in the sun, the plum-tree stirred itself, wakened, and softly burst into a blossom of silky stars.

 

The autumn landscape had aged to brown. Up the open hill swept a stronger wind than for many days, piloting overhead heavy squadrons of cloud, in colour and appearance not unlike the beard of the man standing on the hill nor the smoke of the fire over which he watched. These – clouds, smoke – were blown fiercely and silently along. The skirmish of dry leaves, the sharp tinkle of dust and the quick, ravenous lick of the flames on the rubbish were the only sounds.

Now and then, making rare intervals in his long scrutiny of the fire, the man would look up, either in stretching out a long arm for new fuel, or, more infrequently still, to search sharply the landscape, bare and unshielded as far as he could see. The sight of anything living would make him grunt into the flames; seeing nothing he might spit harshly or wet his lips.

The afternoon went on. As the fire gorged, the man, slow and definite of movement, fed its many tongues with rubbish. To-morrow he would scatter the cold ashes. The day after that he would perhaps plough a bit – he did not know. But to-day he would simply stand and watch till the fire was no more than a red eye in the ground under dusk. There was nothing more to be done; no one to disturb his placidity, and so long as it was dry he was content in that state of serenity.

Composedly he contemplated the flames. When an hour struck into the afternoon air he heard nothing. Under the heat of the fire he half dozed.

“Muster Cordon!”

He swivelled round sharply at the sound of his name.

“Well?”

In answer the little girl edged nearer the fire, outstretching her hands, in one of which gleamed an envelope. She shivered and said:

“There's a note come for you.”

He took it. “Don't you go an' drop it in the fire, then,” he warned her.

“I'm cold,” was all she whispered.

The tissue of notepaper blew out in the wind. Cordon could not read the writing of which it was full, though the printed heading seemed strangely familiar. Approaching the fire at length, he handed the letter to the girl with a slow gesture. She took it without a tremble as if it were nothing new to her to read the letters of that grey animal, Dan Cordon.

But as she read she noticed him growing rapidly statuesque and began to babble without thinking: “We note that … note that … you …”

“Read that bit again,” he bellowed into her face.

She quivered. “Where?”

“We note …”

“We note that … that … note you …” she babbled again.

“Get on! We note …”

She managed to read: “We note that you have made no reply to our fre … quent … com … munic … ations … regarding the property, known as Nine-acre Close ad … join … ing … that of our client. In view of the fact that we …”

“God Almighty.”

The paper disappeared into the heart of the fire. The girl crouched away from him. In his eyes the light seemed to be broken up into thousands of furiously gleaming crystals.

“They can go to Hell!” he raved at her. “It mean they want Nine-acre Close now. That's all. But it'll be the flat land next, then the hill, then the paddock. When they've got that they won't be satisfied until they've got me an' the house an' the whole bloody ship!”

“Will they turn us out?” whispered the girl.

“Eh?”

“Will they ...?” Her voice expired in a whisper.

“Most likely, the mangy dogs. It's robbery! It's only robbery! But they don't get an inch! Not a damned inch!

The girl crossed her hands over her breast in an attitude of protection, not daring to speak. Fearfully, out of the corners of her eyes she caught sight of his, coloured red like the fire he was stoking frenziedly. She began to wish tremblingly for the time when she might run home and tell her mother: “Dan Cordon's gone mad!”

Mad she certainly judged him as he abruptly flung down the fork, and strode off, fiercer than the wind he met coming up the hill in damp, furious blasts.

She watched him as if paralysed. Then: “Our Father which art in 'eaven,” she began to babble quickly.

By the time she had finished that frenzied prayer he was far out of hearing, hands clenched fiercely in his pockets as he contemplated “the property, known as Nine-acre Close, adjoining that of our client.”

Yes, to the eastward lay the Cowper's land, pasture; while to the west, now nearly shrouded by rain-mist, lay land of the same ownership, pasture again. His own, like a yellow tongue, unhealthy, ill-kept, curled between the green, symbolic of trouble.

Nevertheless, he looked and thought: “It's better land than it looks. It's never been worked properly. Next year I'll – God damn it – I won't sell! It's good land! I won't sell! I know what it means – first one thing …”

Raging, be entered the house, accosted his thin wife and declared: “Cowper wants to buy Nine-acre again. By God if he comes here!—”

“Eh?” her mouth gasped.

“He dursan't come. I can tell a wrong' un. Thieving's in him. His father stole that twenty-four acre on the hill from my old Dad, and that was good land. And this is good, too.” He finished up on an abrupt note of defiance: “We ain't got no bad.”

The woman watched, half philosophical, as he ate a basin of bread-thick soup. In his anger he sucked noisily at the food. She could not help thinking, with a trace of bitterness:

Good land! It had given up, last year, a round two quarters of wheat! Next year – she sometimes wondered if there would be a next. If so, its doom was already spelt. Nothingness was already in sight. After all, what could live on that hill? – only that, which, like themselves, had been condemned to it. Something surrendered each year. How they themselves kept up that grim, fiercely silent struggle year after year she did not know.

She remembered the day when they had owned land – real, rich land – but that also had gone little by little, always after that struggle had proved too much. Silently and grimly they had renewed effort, until now, when silence and restraint had become impossible. For weeks, in everything the man did, had lain that unceasing growl, until to-day – to-day he had begun to bark, after being tight-lipped and laconic for sixty years.

She continued to stand over him as he devoured the soup – loosed fury in his every movement, while between the gulps he reiterated: “I won't sell. By God it's robbery, that's all it is!”

It was true, she knew. Cowper had a reputation as a driver of hard bargains that were thefts – all but in name. She recalled how the twenty-four acres on the hill had gone – the only piece of land they had possessed. For the rest they had nothing but little yellow tongues of earth in damp hollows or on the driest spots of the hill, and a square of green they called the paddock, where the lame hens followed the track of the starving horse. Suddenly incensed, she cried:

“Stick 'em out!”

He made no reply, but, suddenly quietened, sat gazing into his empty soup-plate, as if oblivious.

* * *

The Parish Council, which always met in the room above the bar of “The Bell,” was collectively warming its hands over the fire there as that same night the clock drew to seven-thirty.

At one end of the group Robert Cowper was in low conversation with his brother Charles.

“How many times has he been asked already?”

“That's nothing, merely natural shyness, reluctance to part with a possession. He's meek. Nobody has ever heard him protest. The devilish part is to get him to speak at all.”

“Gentlemen!” piped the clerk, “gentlemen, the minutes of the last meeting! Ready, gentlemen?”

“He must speak.”

In a slow, coughing, mumbling procession the Council shuffled to the table, and the clerk began the minutes, reading in a thin treble: “Mr. Chairman ...” As he piped on Cowper looked down the table. Soon that remark must be addressed to him. Sooner or later. Nothing to stop him, only a little more land, only Cordon to stop him.

The clerk droned on, nobody attending, a few breathing with suspicious deepness. “Which was, gentlemen, unanimously carried on the motion of … Your pleasure, Mr. Chairman?”

There was an obsequious bow. The Chairman paused, pen in hand. Suddenly the door opened with a crash. On the threshold stood a thin, grey-bearded man, an outstretched forefinger shaking like a twig in the direction of the table.

“I won't sell! By God it's robbery – you robbed my father of twenty-four acres on the hill. Go to Hell! I won't sell, I must live – It's robbery, robbery!”

Then abruptly pulled down by half a dozen hands appearing from the darkness of the stairs, he continued to scream out disconnected threats and curses that grew gradually fainter.

Somebody muttered “Drunk,” a heavy word that fell on the stillness like a groan. In a feeble voice the clerk commenced his piping. “Gentlemen ...” but stopped as if his tongue had become frozen. The Council managed its breathing warily and pathetically, as if, had it been possible, they would have existed momentarily without breath. One or two had risen, only to remain standing awkwardly.