I
Once more we look down upon English hills, lit by the same September sun. But it is another England; the dark Pennines have been left far behind; the grim heights of ling and peat and black rock, the reeking cauldrons that were the valleys, all have vanished. Here are pleasant green mounds, heights of grass forever stirring to the tune of the southwest winds; clear valleys, each with its gleam of water; grey stone villages, their walls flushing to a delicate pink in the sunlight; parish churches that have rung in and rung out Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian kings; manor houses that have waited for news from Naseby and Blenheim and Waterloo and Inkerman and Ypres, then have let their windows blaze through the night or have suddenly grown still and dark, but have kept their stones unchanged; and here and there, in the wider valleys, little woods where you could play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and gardens shaped and coloured, to the last inch of lawn cross-gartered with stone paths, from the tallest hollyhock to the smallest rosebush, for the music and happy folly of Twelfth Night. This is, indeed, another England, this green and windy outpost of Arden. Over to the west, beyond the deep channels of the rivers, is the Welsh Border country, a Celtic place, with hills as dark and mysterious as a fragment of Arthurian legend. But here, in the Cotswolds, all is open and pleasant, a Saxon tale of grass and grey stone, wind and clear running water. We have quitted the long war of the north. Here is a place of compromise, for Nature has planed off her sharp summits and laid down green carpets in place of bog and heather and rock, and man has forsworn his mad industrial antics, has settled himself modestly and snugly in the valleys and along the hillsides, has trotted out his sheep and put up a few tiny mills, and has been content. Yes, these two signed a peace here, and it has lasted a thousand years.
Chipping Campden is to the north of us, Cirencester to the south, Burford to the east, and Cheltenham to the west. This grey cluster of roofs, with the square church tower in the middle, is almost equidistant from all those four admirable townships. It is the village of Hitherton-on-the-Wole. Sometimes motorists, hurrying from lunch at Oxford to tea at Broadway or Chipping Campden, lose their way and find themselves at Hitherton, and the little books prepared for their use tell them at once that Hitherton has 855 inhabitants, closes early on Wednesday, empties its letter-box at 5:30¬Ýp.m., boasts an hotel, The Shepherd‚Äôs Hall (three bedrooms) and a garage, J. Hurley¬Ý& Son, and has at least one thing worth looking at, for the account closes with the command‚ÅÝ‚ÄîSee Church. Very few of them do stay to see the church, though the rector, the Rev. Thomas J. S. Chillingford, has not only written a short history of it but has also published this history as a pamphlet: ‚ÄúReprinted from the ‚ÄòTransactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society‚Äô‚Ää‚Äù; and any visitor who appreciates an extraordinarily fine rood-screen when he sees one (to say nothing of two possible leper-windows on the north side) cannot fail to obtain a copy of this pamphlet. But away they go, these motorists, and never once turn their heads to remark, with Mr.¬ÝChillingford, that the church ‚Äúfrom a distance suggests a brooding-mother-bird with head erect.‚Äù Thus when any strange and expensive-looking motorcar stops there, everybody in Hitherton, with the exception of Mrs.¬ÝFarley of The Shepherd‚Äôs Hall and J. Hurley¬Ý& Son, who are always hopeful, prepares at once to point the way to other and more important places.
There are some days, however, when people do not lose their way and find themselves in Hitherton but deliberately go there and stay there. This is one of the days. For the last three weeks the countryside has been plastered with notices saying that Messrs. Medworth, Higgs, and Medworth would sell by auction and without reserve the remaining effects of the Old Hall, Hitherton-on-the-Wole. Well-informed people‚ÅÝ‚Äîand almost everybody in Hitherton is well-informed‚ÅÝ‚Äîhave been telling one another ever since old Colonel Trant died, several months ago, that there was sure to be a sale. It was known for certain that the Trants were not so well-off as they used to be. It was known too that Miss Elizabeth Trant, who had looked after her father ever since her mother‚Äôs death, fifteen years ago, would not live on at the Hall but at the Cottage. Miss Elizabeth had been left everything, it was said, though she was the youngest of the Colonel‚Äôs three children. But then she well deserved everything the Colonel could leave her‚ÅÝ‚Äîindeed, deserved more than that‚ÅÝ‚Äîfor had she not stayed in Hitherton and looked after him in his old age? And in the last years he must have been a trial, too. He had had to miss the last two Flower Shows and could not even hobble to church, the poor old gentleman. It was a blessing when he found his way in the end to the churchyard. And Miss Trant, who must be about thirty-seven, though being so straight and slim and fair she does not look it, had taken care of him year after year and had hardly left the village for more than a night this long time; whereas her brother, who was some sort of judge in India, and her sister, who had married well and lived in London, rarely came near the place. Everybody knew that what with the Colonel‚Äôs retired pay going and debts to be paid off and one thing and another, Miss Trant would have less than ¬£200 a year for herself. That was why she intended to live at the Cottage, to which all the things she wanted had already been removed, and why all that remained at the Old Hall, now to be let, was being sold by auction.
It is a long time since Medworth, Higgs, and Medworth last descended upon Hitherton. This is a great day. Any number of cars have gone up to the Old Hall, already Mrs.¬ÝFarley has had to open another bottle of whisky, and J. Hurley¬Ý& Son have had to mend two punctures and see what they could do with a very queer magneto. People, quite ordinary people, not dealers, have come from as far as Bourton-on-the-Water and Winchcombe and Great Barrington. As for dealers, they have come from the ends of the earth. There are at least two from Cheltenham and three from Oxford and one from Gloucester, all proper antique dealers and not merely grocers and drapers who keep a room upstairs filled with secondhand furniture. Not that there are not any of them here, for of course there are quite a number. And it is said that there is one man, the one with eyeglasses and a pointed beard, who represents some big London firm. He did not come down specially, for it is his business to tour the country, but here he is. Then for every one of these professional buyers there must be at least twenty amateurs, local people who have come to see if they can pick up a bit of china or a bedstead. Last of all, there are people who have not come to buy anything, but to see what the Old Hall looks like inside, to walk round the garden, to turn things over and over, and get in the way, to enjoy themselves. These visitors, many of whom have brought all their children, easily outnumber the others, and just as they were the first to arrive, so they will be the last to go. ‚ÄúAlways the same, always the same!‚Äù cried Mr.¬ÝJames Medworth to the protesting Miss Trant. ‚ÄúThey will come, and there‚Äôs no stopping ‚Äôem.‚Äù Mr.¬ÝMedworth has spent years pushing his way through rooms crowded and overheated with these people, and now regards their presence as something inevitable. Still, they laugh at his little jokes, and Mr.¬ÝMedworth has a stock of little jokes. He is a middle-aged man with a very wide mouth and a glitter of large protruding teeth, so that he looks like a jovial shark. Miss Trant does not like him, but is quite willing to believe her solicitor, Mr.¬ÝTruby of Cheltenham, who says: ‚ÄúSmart man, Medworth. Smart man. Keen people.‚Äù
She was there at the Hall this morning, when people began to arrive and look round, but did not stay very long. She is not very sentimental and all her own cherished possessions have been removed to the Cottage, but nevertheless she discovered that the sudden disintegration of a home, however desolating that home might have been sometimes, into a mere jumble of objects, gave her no pleasure. All the things now looked so naked, so helpless. “Awful lot o’ junk here,” she heard one man say to another, dealers every inch of them; and she hurried round the corner, only to run into that familiar steel engraving of Lord Raglan, now Lot 117, and to find that his lordship was glaring into vacancy, cutting her dead. But all the things were like that, either indignant or wistful. She retired, wishing she had taken more of them to the Cottage, though she knew very well that the Cottage was too full already.
She found Mrs.¬ÝPurton putting the Cottage in order, and spent the next hour or two helping her. Mrs.¬ÝPurton had been cook at the Hall, and her husband‚ÅÝ‚Äîand his father before him‚ÅÝ‚Äîhad been gardener, and now they had both been transferred, for the time being, to the Cottage. Mrs.¬ÝPurton ‚Äúdidn‚Äôt ‚Äôold with auctioneering,‚Äù apparently regarding it as a frivolous pastime, and so she had stayed at home all day. But Purton was up at the Hall, partly because he was a sociable man and had no intention of missing such an event, and partly because he was also very loyal and believed that his presence would put a stop to any thieving, particularly in the kitchen garden. So in order that no vegetables should be taken, he was spending his time following the auctioneer round from room to room, apparently convinced that it was Mr.¬ÝMedworth, his clerks, and the dealers, who would want watching. It was Purton who brought news of the sale.
‚ÄúIs it all over, Purton?‚Äù cried Miss Trant, as soon as she saw him coming down the garden. He came up, touched his cap, then, putting his hands in his trousers pockets, he began swaying back from the hips. This was his favourite attitude when he had anything important to say, so that Miss Trant, who knew her man, realized at once that he was bursting with news. Not that he looked excited. You cannot expect a gardener who for the past six years has won the first prize for onions (Ailsa Craigs)‚ÅÝ‚Äîto say nothing of any number of minor events‚ÅÝ‚Äîat the Hitherton and District Show, to betray his feelings.
‚ÄúNo, Miss, rightly speaking, it isn‚Äôt over,‚Äù he replied. ‚ÄúBut what‚Äôs left don‚Äôt amount to much. A lot o‚Äô people goin‚Äô now. But that thar bit of a sideboard that stood in the ‚Äôall, that old un‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù and he stopped talking only to sway more violently.
“You mean the Tudor one. I know. I couldn’t find a place for it here, Purton, and they say it’s very valuable. What happened to it?”
“A ’undred and forty pound,” announced Purton, staring at her solemnly. “A ’undred and forty pound, that’s just fetched.”
“Isn’t that splendid, Purton!” Miss Trant looked at him with shining eyes, and did not seem a day older than twenty.
He stopped swaying, removed one hand from its pocket, and held up three fingers very impressively. ‚ÄúThree of ‚Äôem after it at the finish, that‚Äôs all‚ÅÝ‚Äîthree! Dealers they was. An Oxford feller, and a Cheltenham feller, and a little chap with a beard that‚Äôs come from London. Three of ‚Äôem! And they ‚Äôardly says a word, ‚Äôardly a word. Never see anything like it!‚Äù
“What did they do then?”
‚ÄúWinks. Just winks.‚Äù And Purton produced three of them too, very slow and solemn affairs, to show her how it was done, and then stared at her while she tried hard not to giggle. ‚ÄúMr.¬ÝMedworth, ‚Äôe says ‚ÄòGoin‚Äô at ninety‚Äô and then one of ‚Äôem winks, and Mr.¬ÝMedworth says ‚ÄòNinety-five‚Äô and looks at another of ‚Äôem, gets a wink and ‚Äôas it up to a hundred. ‚ÄòAnd five‚Äô says the chap with a beard, and then they starts winkin‚Äô again, and then it‚Äôs winked right up to one ‚Äôundred and forty pounds. ‚ÄôE‚Äôs done well, ‚Äôas that thar sideboard.‚Äù
“I never thought it was worth as much as that, Purton.”
‚ÄúYou wouldn‚Äôt think so, Miss, would you‚ÅÝ‚Äîjust a bit of an old sideboard,‚Äù said Purton, speaking very confidentially. ‚ÄúIt wouldn‚Äôt surprise me if it woren‚Äôt. It‚Äôs this ‚Äôere competition that does it. Carries you away. You think you must ‚Äôave it. I once found meself landed with ten runner ducks that I no more wanted nor thought o‚Äô buying when I went up and ‚Äôad a look at the chap selling ‚Äôem than I thought o‚Äô buying a ring-tailed monkey. Got carried away. Plenty ‚Äôas been carried away this afternoon up at that thar auctioning. Mr.¬ÝMedworth says it‚Äôs a good sale. I‚Äôll be back thar, Miss, as soon as I‚Äôve had a bit to eat. I‚Äôll ‚Äôelp to clear up. There‚Äôll be a nasty mess when they‚Äôve done, I know.‚Äù
For the first time that day, Miss Trant began to feel excited about the sale. Mr.¬ÝMedworth had told her that it was impossible for him to say beforehand what the things would fetch; it all depended on the number of people who came, the sort of people and the mood they were in; and the whole lot might go for less than five hundred pounds, but on the other hand it might realize something like a thousand. It was impossible to doubt anything that Mr.¬ÝMedworth said about such matters. Miss Trant had tried, with some measure of success, to regard the whole proceeding as so much dull routine‚ÅÝ‚Äîone of the innumerable dreary things that had had to be done since her father died‚ÅÝ‚Äîbut now she realized that this was a gigantic gamble, a homely Monte Carlo, got up for her benefit. The difference between a good sale and a bad one might mean a difference of several hundred pounds, which in their turn could add a pound or two a month to her income. You could work it out in grades of China tea or silk stockings, that difference. And now it was being decided. She walked up and down the little Cottage garden, her head humming with addition and subtraction as it had done many a time these last few years, when she had had to pay all the bills and keep the accounts for her father. She was poorer now but she did not feel poorer. Actually she felt vaguely rich. ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs because I‚Äôve heard so much talk about money,‚Äù she told herself, thinking of the discussions she had had with Mr.¬ÝTruby in his Dickens-ish little office, and then, more recently, with Mr.¬ÝMedworth, who was at once too teethy and jovial to be a gentleman.
She saw Purton return to the Hall, but did not follow him. After a restless half-hour or so in the Cottage, mostly spent in picking things up, walking about with them, and then putting them down again, she went to the bottom of the garden. The village below seemed to be full of cars, hooting through the main street and then roaring away to the Oxford or Cheltenham roads. The sale must be all over now. She would walk across and see.
When she approached the Hall, picking her way through a smelly muddle of people and cars and vans, the glorious September afternoon seemed to change at once. Its ripe gold became hot and dusty gilt. The Hall itself seemed smaller in this strange atmosphere, made up of straw and string and petrol and stares and silly jokes and perspiring bargainers. The place gaped vacantly, like a once handsome old idiot. As she skirted the crowd in front and made her way to a side door, she had a glimpse of certain familiar tables and chairs and pictures now being lifted into vans and carts, and that glimpse made her feel, as nothing that had happened before during these last few months had made her feel, that her life indeed was changed, beginning all over again. Those things had seemed more fixed and inevitable than the constellations, and now they were being hurried through the dust. They too were beginning all over again. And before she had reached the side door, she found herself choking a little, close to tears. She brushed past the men who were sweeping up the litter in the passages and made for the hall itself, the glory of the house. There she disturbed the rector, Mr.¬ÝChillingford, who was peering at the woodwork through a large reading glass.
He looked up, startled. “Hello! I had to have a look at this panelling at the back, now that I can see it properly. I knew it was different from the rest. I told my wife it was only this morning. Not that she said it wasn’t, of course, because she’s not interested in this sort of thing.” Then he brought his round red innocent face closer to hers, and said, more gently: “You look worried, Elizabeth. All this hasn’t been very pleasant for you, has it? You shouldn’t have come here; you should have kept out of the way, my dear.”
“I suppose I ought,” she replied vaguely. “But I have kept out of the way most of the time. And I’m not feeling what you think I’m feeling. It’s not sentiment about this place that’s worrying me.” She stopped, then smiled at him rather wanly.
“You’re like Dorothy and all the other young people I know nowadays,” he said. He always thought of Elizabeth Trant as a contemporary of his daughter and her friend, though actually she was ten years older. He saw her as a tall brisk schoolgirl who would one day become a woman. It was something undeveloped, immature, sexless, in her that fostered such conceptions. “Yes, you’re like the rest,” he continued. “You think there’s something to be ashamed of in sentiment. That’s why it seems to be dying out, leaving the world. But I don’t see myself that the world will be a better place without it. Not a bit, not a bit! It’ll be a worse place. So don’t you be ashamed of your feelings, my dear.” And he gave her a little pat or two on the shoulder.
“I’m not. I’m only trying to be honest about them. And it really is something quite different.”
“What is it then?” he inquired indulgently.
‚ÄúI don‚Äôt know‚ÅÝ‚Äîquite. It‚Äôs too complicated.‚Äù But she did know, though she had neither the will nor the words at her command to tell him. It was not because something had ended for her but because she had just seen how it ended that she was so troubled, so close to tears. It seemed as if her father‚Äôs life had not come to its end in the churchyard there, but here and now, in the dust and straw and shouting, had been bargained and frittered away into oblivion this very afternoon. She seemed to have had a sudden terrible glimpse of life as it really was, and was ready to weep at the thought of its strange dusty littleness.
‚ÄúAll the things you really want, of course, have been removed to the Cottage?‚Äù Mr.¬ÝChillingford knew very well they had, but the question seemed to him to have a certain consolatory value.
“Yes, everything,” she told him, and stared at the fantastically empty hall, into which the heavy sunlight came oozing.
“And I’m told it’s been a splendid sale, a splendid sale,” he added cheerfully, as they walked together to the front door.
Just outside, Mr.¬ÝMedworth himself was glittering and booming and mopping his brow. At the sight of Miss Trant, he triumphantly raised a hand. ‚ÄúA very successful afternoon, I‚Äôm told,‚Äù said Mr.¬ÝChillingford, opening the subject for him.
‚ÄúCouldn‚Äôt be better, couldn‚Äôt be better,‚Äù he cried, and then looked so businesslike that Mr.¬ÝChillingford hurried away at once. ‚ÄúWe‚Äôre just finishing off now, Miss Trant, the figures, y‚Äôknow. Over a thousand, I‚Äôm confident of that. Yes, over a thousand.‚Äù
“Why, that’s even more than you thought it would come to, even at the best, isn’t it?” Miss Trant felt rich again, in spite of her sober acquaintance with figures.
‚ÄúWell, I wouldn‚Äôt say that because I‚Äôm never surprised, never,‚Äù Mr.¬ÝMedworth said, very judicially. ‚ÄúBut we‚Äôve been lucky today, very lucky. Some keen men here, real competition. And‚Äù‚ÅÝ‚Äîhere he lowered his voice and hid his teeth‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äúit was lucky you took my advice about the walnut pieces and left them in. Worth far more to these fellows than they are to you. All a fashion!‚Äù
“Did they sell very well, then?”
‚ÄúFetched ridiculous prices, ridiculous! Knew they would, if we got the right people here. That little bureau went up to thirty-five. Three of ‚Äôem after every piece.‚Äù And Mr.¬ÝMedworth continued in this strain for the next ten minutes, at the end of which he had to break off because he found a mass of documents thrust under his nose.
‚ÄúWe‚Äôve got it now,‚Äù he announced, five minutes later. ‚ÄúOne thousand and sixty-five pounds, fourteen shillings, and sixpence, that‚Äôs what we make it. That‚Äôs less our commission, y‚Äôknow. All your own, Miss Trant, eh? Yes, all your own. Shall we settle up with Mr.¬ÝTruby? Ah yes, I‚Äôll settle with Mr.¬ÝTruby tomorrow. Good!‚Äù He turned away as if to depart and swept round again so quickly that he made Miss Trant feel dizzy. ‚ÄúThe house,‚Äù he cried, lifting a long fat forefinger. ‚ÄúWe mustn‚Äôt forget that. They‚Äôre cleaning it up now, and tomorrow, Miss Trant, perhaps you could get a woman or two in to finish it off. And a gardener to tidy up. You could, eh? I‚Äôll tell you why. We‚Äôre going to get rid of the house sooner than I thought. Inquiry came in yesterday, and I‚Äôll send ‚Äôem over day after tomorrow. How‚Äôs that for you? Send someone with ‚Äôem, of course, but thought you might like to show ‚Äôem round a bit yourself. Sure you don‚Äôt want to sell? No. Quite right, quite right. Well, we‚Äôll stick at a hundred and fifty, not a penny less. Get it easily, best house in the district. Day after tomorrow then, morning if possible. And settle with Mr.¬ÝTruby. Good afternoon, Miss Trant. Go‚Äëod afternoon. Here, where‚Äôs Charlie?‚Äù But this last shout was not intended for Miss Trant, and now we have finished with Mr.¬ÝMedworth.
Miss Trant returned to the Cottage, richer by the sum of one thousand and sixty-five pounds, fourteen shillings, and sixpence. She walked quickly and erectly down the lane, then tidied up the Cottage and tidied up herself, dealt justly with an excellent cold supper, wrote a few letters and read a chapter or two before going, rather earlier than usual, to bed; and nobody who saw her could have guessed what she was feeling. Here was the trim, the brisk, the efficient Miss Trant that everybody knew, with not a single hair of that light-brown and unbobbed mass disturbed. Nevertheless, she felt as if she were lost. ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs weak and silly to feel like this,‚Äù she told herself firmly. ‚ÄúIn the morning, I must begin all over again.‚Äù Before she could do more than turn over a few vague plans, she was asleep, dreaming perhaps of the long-deferred payment of life to her youth, that youth which the calendar, lying to her bright face, said had slipped by. And now Hitherton was itself again, quiet under the glimmer of stars. There were no cars parked in the main street. The last van had shaken itself from the Hall long ago. J. Hurley¬Ý& Son had closed the garage and were celebrating their victory over the queer magneto by eating a large late supper of cold potato pie. In the taproom of The Shepherd‚Äôs Hall, Purton was finishing his final half-pint and also the whole question of dealers‚Äô winks. The dealers themselves, the little buyers, the sightseers, had long dispersed, and with them all the chairs and tables and chests of drawers and china and guns and books and steel engravings and Indian screens and Burmese gongs, all gone out to strange places; leaving their Colonel resting in the churchyard, and his daughter sleeping under this roof of her own, still in familiar Hitherton and yet perhaps really in a new world.