第32章 X(1)

The rain tilted a little from the south-west. For the most part it fell from a grey cloud silently, but now and then the tilt increased, and a kind of sigh passed over the country as the drops lashed the walls, trees, shepherds, and other motionless objects that stood in their slanting career. At times the cloud would descend and visibly embrace the earth, to which it had only sent messages; and the earth itself would bring forth clouds --clouds of a whiter breed--which formed in shallow valleys and followed the courses of the streams. It seemed the beginning of life. Again God said, "Shall we divide the waters from the land or not? Was not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?" At all events it was the beginning of life pastoral, behind which imagination cannot travel.

Yet complicated people were getting wet--not only the shepherds.

For instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar's wife. So were the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battleston car. Gallantry, charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the eternal dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian.

Inside an arbour--which faced east, and thus avoided the bad weather--there sat a complicated person who was dry. She looked at the drenched world with a pleased expression, and would smile when a cloud would lay down on the village, or when the rain sighed louder than usual against her solid shelter. Ink, paperclips, and foolscap paper were on the table before her, and she could also reach an umbrella, a waterproof, a walking-stick, and an electric bell. Her age was between elderly and old, and her forehead was wrinkled with an expression of slight but perpetual pain. But the lines round her mouth indicated that she had laughed a great deal during her life, just as the clean tight skin round her eyes perhaps indicated that she had not often cried. She was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk shawl lay most becomingly over her beautiful hair.

After long thought she wrote on the paper in front of her, "The subject of this memoir first saw the light at Wolverhampton on May the 14th, 1842." She laid down her pen and said "Ugh!" Arobin hopped in and she welcomed him. A sparrow followed and she stamped her foot. She watched some thick white water which was sliding like a snake down the gutter of the gravel path. It had just appeared. It must have escaped from a hollow in the chalk up behind. The earth could absorb no longer. The lady did not think of all this, for she hated questions of whence and wherefore, and the ways of the earth ("our dull stepmother") bored her unspeakably. But the water, just the snake of water, was amusing, and she flung her golosh at it to dam it up. Then she wrote feverishly, "The subject of this memoir first saw the light in the middle of the night. It was twenty to eleven. His pa was a parson, but he was not his pa's son, and never went to heaven."There was the sound of a train, and presently white smoke appeared, rising laboriously through the heavy air. It distracted her, and for about a quarter of an hour she sat perfectly still, doing nothing. At last she pushed the spoilt paper aside, took afresh piece, and was beginning to write, "On May the 14th, 1842," when there was a crunch on the gravel, and a furious voice said, "I am sorry for Flea Thompson.""I daresay I am sorry for him too," said the lady; her voice was languid and pleasant. "Who is he?""Flea's a liar, and the next time we meet he'll be a football."Off slipped a sodden ulster. He hung it up angrily upon a peg: the arbour provided several.

"But who is he, and why has he that disastrous name?""Flea? Fleance. All the Thompsons are named out of Shakespeare.

He grazes the Rings."

"Ah, I see. A pet lamb."

"Lamb! Shepherd!"

"One of my Shepherds?"

"The last time I go with his sheep. But not the last tune he sees me. I am sorry for him. He dodged me today,""Do you mean to say"--she became animated--"that you have been out in the wet keeping the sheep of Flea Thompson?""I had to." He blew on his fingers and took off his cap. Water trickled over his unshaven cheeks. His hair was so wet that it seemed worked upon his scalp in bronze.

"Get away, bad dog!" screamed the lady, for he had given himself a shake and spattered her dress with water. He was a powerful boy of twenty, admirably muscular, but rather too broad for his height. People called him "Podge" until they were dissuaded. Then they called him "Stephen" or "Mr. Wonham." Then he said, "You can call me Podge if you like.""As for Flea--!" he began tempestuously. He sat down by her, and with much heavy breathing told the story,--"Flea has a girl at Wintersbridge, and I had to go with his sheep while he went to see her. Two hours. We agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to kiss his girl, and half an hour back--and he had my bike. Four hours! Four hours and seven minutes I was on the Rings, with a fool of a dog, and sheep doing all they knew to get the turnips.""My farm is a mystery to me," said the lady, stroking her fingers.

"Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers.

How is it that I have escaped? Why have I never been summoned to milk the cows, or flay the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to the pasture?"He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes--the only dry things he had about him. He could not see into her: she would have puzzled an older and clever man. He may have seen round her.

"A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a joy for ever.""I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, you understand right enough," she exclaimed irritably, and then smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told that he was not a thing of beauty. "Large and steady feet," she continued, "have this disadvantage--you can knock down a man, but you will never knock down a woman.""I don't know what you mean. I'm not likely--""Oh, never mind--never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent.