 THE AIR by Vita Sackville West. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Story 3. PATIENCE He had only to seclude his mind in order to imagine himself in the train again, to hear its steady beat, and to sway monotonously with its rocking. As soon as he had isolated himself in this daydream, he was impervious to the sights and sounds that washed round on the outskirts of his consciousness. He was safely withdrawn. He sat staring, not at the green bays of the card table, where his wife, with white plump, be-ringed hands, under the strong light thrown down by the shaded lamp, set out the neat rows of shiny cards for her game of patience. He sat staring, sheltered within the friendly shadows, not at this evening security of his home, but out through the rectangular windows of the train, framed the hard blaze of the southern country, the red rocks and the blue sea. The train curving in and out of tunnels, round the sharp promontories, disclosing the secrets of little bays, the pine trees among the boulders, and the blackened scrub that be tokened to previous hillside fire. Opposite him she slept, curled up in the corner of the seat, very young and very fragile, under the big collar of soft fur of her coat, thrown over her to keep off the dust. He had wished that she would look out of the window with him. He knew how she would sit up, and the quick impatient gesture by which she would dash the hair out of her eyes. But she slept so peacefully, so like a child, that he would not wake her. He bent forward, knocking the ash of his cigarette off against the window ledge, to get a better view out of the window. And every little creak, as the curving train took it out of view, he pursued with regretful eyes, knowing that he would not pass that way again. This forlorn and beautiful coast, whose every accident was so faithfully followed by the train, this coast, every bit of it, was a party to his happiness, and he had been reluctant to let it go. How his heart ached! Perhaps it was not wholesome to have trained his mind to enter so readily, so completely, into that world of recollections. He dragged himself out. Patience going well? Not very well tonight. He drifted away again, before he well knew that he had drifted. Not to the train this time, his memories were illimitably various. The time had been when he could not trust himself to dip into them, those memories that were now perpetually his refuge, his solace, and his pain. A hotel bedroom. What hotel? It didn't matter. All hotel bedrooms were alike. All paradise, so long as they had contained her. In what spot? That didn't matter, either. Somewhere warm and gaudy. All their escapades had been southern places. Somewhere, with Bougainville, ramping over creamy houses. Somewhere, with gay irresponsible negroes selling oranges out of immense baskets at the street corners. She had never tired of the gash of their white teeth in their black faces as they grinned. She would stop to buy their oranges just to get the grin. And some of them could juggle with oranges, which made her laugh and turned to him in delight and clap her hands. He clenched his fingers together out of sight, as he lounged in the depths of his armchair. That hotel room. Her clothes. He used to kneel on the floor beside her open dressing case, lifting out her clothes for her, because she was too lazy to unpack for herself. She watched him through her eyelashes, amused at his complaints which so ill concealed his joy in her possessions. Then she would catch his head, then strain it hungrily against her. They were always violent, irresistible, surprising, those rare demonstrations of hers, and left him dizzy and abashed. That hotel room. Always the same furniture. The iron bedstead under the draped mosquito curtains that were so oddly bridal. The combined washstand and chest of drawers. The drawers incorrigibly half-open, and spilling the disorder of her garments, her ribbons, and her laces. The hanging wardrobe with the long-looking glass door. The dressing-table littered with her brushes, her powder, and her scent-bottles. The evenings. He would come noiselessly into her room, while she lingered at her mirror in her long silk nightgown. Her gleaming arms lifted to take the pins out of her hair. And after standing in the doorway to watch her, he would switch off the electric light so that the open window and the dark blue sky suddenly leapt up, deep, luminous, and spangled with gold stars behind her. Then the coup of her voice never startled, never hasty. A coup of laughter and remonstrance, rather than of displeasure. And he would go to her, and draw her out onto the balcony, from where his arm flung round her shoulders, and her suppleness yielding contentedly to his pressure. They watched the yellow moon mount up above the sheaves of the palm trees, and glint upon a shield of distant water. And there were other nights, so many he might take his choice amongst them. Carnival nights, when she fled away from him and became a spirit, an incarnation of carnival, and the sweep of her dancing eyes over his face was vague and rapid, as though he were a stranger she had never seen before. He used to feel a small despair, thinking that any domino who whirled her away possessed her in closer affinity than he. And when he had at last, thankfully, brought her back into her room at the hotel, with confetti scattered over the floor, fallen from her carnival clothes, whose tawdry satin and tinsel lay thrown across a chair. Then, although he could not have wished her sweeter, she still kept that will of the wisp remoteness, that air of one who has strayed and been with difficulty recaptured, which made him wonder whether he or anyone else would ever touch the secret of her shy and fugitive heart. How funny you are, Paul! You haven't turned over a page of your book for at least twenty minutes. Not a rebuke, merely a placid comment. Another set of patience nicely dealt out. After that he turned the pages assiduously, it wouldn't do to be caught dreaming. Then came the relapse. She had flitted away from him, yes. The day had come when she had flitted. He had known, always, somewhere within himself, that it would come. To whom had she gone? He didn't know. He hadn't tried to find out, perhaps to no one. And, anyway, the fate of her body, passionately as he had loved it, didn't seem so vital a matter. What mattered was the flame within her. He couldn't bear to think that she should have given anyone that. Not that he was fatuous enough to suppose that he had ever had it. Oh, no! He was far too humble, too diffident in his mind. He had worshipped her all the more, because he knew there was something in her withdrawn, the eternal pilgrim, the incorrigible truant. He knew that he could never have loved any woman who hadn't that element in her. And since he had only found it once, quite logically he had never loved but once. He had been young, then. It had been easy enough for his relations to pick holes in her. Flighty, they had said, and snorting. She takes the best years of his life and then throws him aside. And to all their comments he had never answered once, but had looked at them with deeply wounded eyes so that they wondered uneasily what thoughts were locked in his heart. Nor had they ever got any information out of him. All their version of the story had been pieced together from bits of gossip and rumour. Correct in the main as to facts, but utterly at sea as to essentials. But as he disdained to set them right, they were never any the wiser. Never loved but once, and here he was, fifty, prosperous, and envied by other men, going daily about his affairs, dining well, talking rationally, a certain portliness in his manner which his figure had escaped. He and his wife, a commendable couple, a couple that made one disbelieve in anarchy, wild oats, or wild animals. People smiled with the satisfaction of approval when they came into a room. Here were security, dinkorum, here were civilisation and politeness. Here was a member of the civic corporation, a burger to admire and to respect. He had a grave courtly manner, slightly indulgent towards women, which they found not unattractive, although they knew that he varied it towards none of them, whether plain or pretty, stade or skittish. There was always the same grave smile on his lips, always the same sustained, controlled interest in his eyes, attention, perhaps, rather than interest. The line was a difficult one to draw. The type of man who made other men say, Wish we had more fellows like him, and of whom the women said amongst themselves, A puzzling man, somehow, isn't he, so quiet, one never knows what he is really thinking, or whether he isn't laughing at us all. Do you suppose, though, that he has ever really felt? The madcap things she did. He recalled that evening at the railway station, when under the glare of the arc lights she had danced up to a ticket-collector, she in her little travelling-hat and her furs and the soft luxury that always seemed to surround her. When does the next train start? Wherefore, miss? Oh, it doesn't matter where, for just the next train. And they had gone to Stroud. This patience never seems to come out, said the voice proceeding from under the lamp. No, dear? No, I think I shall have to give it up for an easier one. It's so irritating when things won't go right. I should try an easier one tomorrow. Tomorrow? Oh, I see. You want to go to bed. I must say I should rather have liked to try it this evening, but if you want to go to bed. No, dear. Of course not. Try your patience by all means. No, dear. I wouldn't dream of it as you want to go to bed. Besides, tomorrow will do just as well. You will go round, won't you, and see that everything is properly locked up? But I am dragging you to bed when you don't want to go. Not a bit, Paul. I assure you. It is quite all right. I am really quite sleepy myself. I should have liked to try the patience, perhaps, but tomorrow will do just as well. He held the door open gravely for her, but there were several things she must attend to before leaving the room. The fire must be poked down so that no spark could be spat out onto the hearth rug. The drawer of her writing table must be locked so that the housemaid should not read her letters or examine her bills when dusting the room before breakfast on the following morning. And the book which she had been reading must be replaced in the bookcase. He endured all this ritual without betraying any irritation, watching even the final pats which she gave to the cushions of his chair. It's quite all right, Paul, dear. Of course one can't help crumpling cushions when one sits on them. And what are they there for but to be sat on? She bustled out of the room, calling back to him as she mounted the stairs. You won't forget to lock up, will you? He had remembered to lock up now for twenty years. He went methodically about the business, looking behind curtains to see whether the shutters were closed, testing the chain on the front door. All that paraphernalia of security. He felt sometimes that the cold, the poor, and the hungry were welcomed to the embers of his drawing-room fire, to the silver of his sideboard, and to the remains of the wine in his decanters. And as he stood for a moment at the garden door, looking up the gravel path of his trim little garden, and felt the biting cold beneath the slip of the new moon, he wondered with a sort of anguish where she was, whether she was sheltered and cared for, or whether in her gay improbable way she had gone down and under, until on such a winter's night as this, there remained no comfort for her but such as she might find among the mirrors and garish lights of a bar, in such fortuitous company as she might charm with a vivacious manner and an affectation of laughter. She had, from time to time, been haunted by a premonition of such things, he remembered. A mocking wistfulness had come into her voice when she said, You'll always be all right, Paul, you were born prosperous, but as for me I'll end my days among the dregs of the world. I know it, so think of me sometimes when you sit over your madera and your cigar, won't you? And wonder whether my nose isn't pushed against your window in the hopes that the smell of your cooking might drift out to me. And when she had said these things, he had put his hand over her mouth to stop the words he couldn't bear to hear, and she had laughed and had repeated, Well, well, we'll see. He shut the door carefully and shot the bolt into its socket. Very cold it was, silly of him to stand at the open door like that, hoped he hadn't got a chill. Lighting his candle in the hall, he switched off the electric lights and climbed the stairs to bed. A nice fire warmed his dressing room, and his pajamas were put out for him over the back of a chair in front of the fire. He undressed, thinking that he was glad he wasn't a poor devil out in the cold. His wife was already in bed, and by the light of her reading lamp he saw the curlers that framed her forehead, and the feathers stitching in white floss silk round the collar of her flannel nightgown. What a long time you've been, Paul! I was just thinking I shan't be able to try that patience tomorrow evening, because we've got the Howard Ellis' coming to dinner. So we have, I'd quite forgotten. We must give them champagne, he said mechanically. They'll expect it. He got into bed, turned out the lamp, and lay down beside his wife, staring into the dark. END OF STORY III She awoke that morning earlier than was her want, emerging from a delicious sleep into a waking no less pleasant. Lazily she slipped her hand under her pillows. There were a lot of pillows, all very downy, into which her head and shoulders sank as into a nest. She liked a lot of pillows. That was one of her little luxuries, and she was in the habit of saying, What was one's own house, if not a place, where one's little luxuries could be indulged? Lazily she slipped her hand under the pillows, feeling about, and having found what she wanted, pressed the spring of the repeater watch, lying there tucked away. Its tiny melodious chime came to her, muffled but distinct. Seven clear little bells, then two chimes for the half-hour, then five quick busy strokes, five and twenty minutes to eight, five and twenty minutes still before she would be called. She lay contentedly on her back, with her arms folded beneath her head, watching the daylight increase through the short chintz curtains of her window's opposite. The chintz, a shiny one, was lined with pink. The light came through it, pink and tempered. She lay wondering whether she should get up to pull the curtains aside. But she was so comfortable, so softly warm, and in so pleasant a frame of mind that she would not break the hour by moving. She had a little world inside her head today, making her independent of the world outside. And besides, she knew so well what she would see, when did she make the effort, and get up to pull the curtains. She would see what she had seen every day for forty years. The barn with the orange lichen on the roof, the church tower, the jumbled roofs of the village, the bare beautiful limbs of the distant downs. She knew it all, knew it with the knowledge of love. And yet, in spite of this intimate knowledge, she was frequently heard to remark that the country had always some new surprise, some gradation of light one had never seen before, so that one was always on the lookout and one's interest kept alive from day to day. The seasons in themselves constituted a surprise to which, in her five and sixty years of life, she had never grown accustomed. She forgot each beauty as it became replaced by a newer beauty. In the delight of spring she forgot the etched austerity of winter, and in winter she forgot the flowers of spring, so it was always with a naive astonishment that she recognized the arrival of a new season, and each one, as it became established, seemed to her the best. The discovery took some time before it settled into its place in the working of her mind, but once there it held with a gentle obstinacy, and, because there were not very many of these discoveries, none of them were very far away from the circling current of her thoughts. Nor was she eager for fresh acquaintances among her thoughts, any more than for fresh acquisitions among her friends, just as she liked faces to be familiar, so she liked ideas to be well tested and proven before she admitted them to the privilege of her intimacy. The presence of strangers was an inconvenience, good manners for bad little jokes from which strangers were excluded, little elusive or reminiscent smiles in which they could not share. It followed logically enough, although she enjoyed the small, carefully chosen dinner parties she gave once a fortnight on summer evenings, that she was really happiest alone with her house and garden, because, as she said, one never knows anybody so well as one knows oneself, and even one's most approved friends are apt to contradict or to disagree, or to advance unforeseen opinions, to disconcert, in fact, in a variety of ways impossible to the silent acquiescence of plants or furniture, and the one person whose constant companionship she would have chosen had hitherto been absent. She was perfectly happy now as she lay waiting for eight o'clock and the beginning of the day, agreeable anticipations floating in her mind as her eyes wandered over the comfort of her room, from the chintz curtains to the bright stoppered bottles and silver on her dressing table, from the small bookcase full of nicely bound books to the row of photographs on the mantelpiece. All was very still. One of the curtains bellied out a little in front of an open window. From time to time a smile hovered over her lips, and once she gave a sigh, and moved slightly in her bed, as though the very perfection of her thoughts were giving her a deliciously uneasy rapture. But she never allowed herself to indulge for long in reveries, which, however pleasant they might be, led to nothing practical. She knew that she had a great deal to see to that morning, and if all were not done in an orderly way, something would be forgotten. She stretched out her hand, then took from off the table by her bed a memorandum-book, fitted with a pencil and bound in green leather, across which was written in gilt lettering, while I remember it. With the pencil poised above the first fair page, she paused. Would it be better to execute her business in the village first, or do what she had to do about the house? The village first, by all means, if any of the tradesmen made a mistake, there would be the more time to rectify their blunder. She began, in her mind, her journey up the village street, stopping at the stationers, the grocers, the fish mongers. How difficult it was to cater for the wants of a man! So long since she had done it, she had lost the habit. What would he want? The times. She noted, times, and added after a long concentration, the field. Then she remembered that he liked jay pens. She herself always used relief. How lucky that she had thought of that! There was nothing else from the stationers. Of all the ordinary requirements, writing paper, blotting paper, ink, pencils, gummed labels, elastic bands, envelopes of assorted sizes, she kept in her cupboard an exhaustive store. The grocer next, and she had already, a long way back, when she first heard that Henry was coming, made a note that he liked preserved ginger. She renewed this note, neatly, under the proper heading in her list. Ginger, Brazil nuts, a small stilton, anchovies, he would want a savoury for dinner, and he should have it chutney. She could not think of anything else. But once she was in the shop, she could look around and perhaps see something that he would like. She passed on to the fishmongers, and with a delighted smile wrote down, Herring Rose, and Kippers. How amused and pleased he would be when he realized how well she had remembered all his tastes. Not the taste he had when he was a little boy, in which she might have remembered out of sentiment. No, he should see that she had kept pace with his years, and remembered his preferences as a man, up to five years ago, when she had last seen him. She had finished now with the village, for all the more staple requirements had, of course, been ordered at the beginning of the week, and these were only the extras which she had treasured up to do herself on the last morning. There was more to be seen to at home. Flowers, no, she need not make a note of that, she would not forget to do the flowers. But there were other things which, less noted, might slip her memory. Order the motor, eggs, brown for breakfast, honey, fire in his room, put out the port, put out the cigars, early morning tea. At that moment she heard the church clock beginning to strike eight, and with a knock on the door her maid came in, carrying a little tray in one hand and a can of hot water in the other. There were a few letters slipped under the edge of the saucer on the tray, and Mrs. Martin read them while she drank her tea. But they were not very interesting, only the annual appeal from the local gardener's society. She thought it unthrifty to send that by post, when it could so easily have been left by hand. A couple of bills, a bulb catalogue from Holland, which read, Early every morning will be seen dozens of parties of men, women and children, tramping up the mountains between France and Spain, singing the popular song of Harry Lauder. We're all going the same way, we've all gone down the hills. Now perhaps you will ask me why I tell this in a bulb catalogue, and here I will give you the answer. In the valleys of those beautiful Pyrenees mountains live numerous daffodils, which are the richest flowering of these garden friends I ever met. Will you not try a couple of hundred from our stock? And you will be convinced to have invested Fife Bob on the good horse. And a letter from her sister in Devon, which she put aside to read later on. The maid moved about the room, putting everything ready very quietly and skillfully. The curtains were drawn back now, and from her bed Mrs. Martin could see the wide autumn sky, gold brown behind the scarlet trail of splay-leaved Virginia creeper that hung down outside the window. She was glad that it was neither raining nor windy. She would have the motor opened before it started for the station. The day had really begun. A rising tide of excitement made her want very much to talk to Williams, but this was against her principles, and she restrained herself. She kept glancing at Williams whenever the maid's back was turned, or her head bent over the linen in the tidy drawers, and opening her lips to speak. But the remark faded away each time into a nervous smile, which she concealed by drinking again from her cup of tea. But when Williams came and stood by her bed to say, The bath is quite ready, ma'am. She could not prevent herself from speaking. She wanted to say, You know, it's to-day, Williams, to-day. But instead of that she said with detachment, Is it a fine morning, Williams? And Williams replied, respectful as ever. A beautiful morning, ma'am. But Mrs. Martin, as she got out of bed and slipped her feet into the warmed bedroom slippers that were waiting for her, felt that between herself and Williams a perfectly satisfactory understanding existed. End of story four, section one. She came downstairs in due course in a brown Holland dress, with a big black straw hat tied with black ribbons under her chin. Her fresh old face looked soft and powdered. Her white hair escaped in puffs from under her hat. On her nose she wore a pair of round-horn spectacles, and on her hands a pair of big brown leather gauntlets. Over her arm she carried a garden basket, a pair of garden scissors dangling by a ribbon from the handle. She was going to do the flowers first. One never knew at this time of year whether a sudden shower might not come down and dash their beauty. In the hall at the bottom of the stairs the grandfather clock ticked quietly. The doors all stood open. Looking to the left she could see into the sitting-room with its deep, chintz-covered chairs and sofas. Looking to the right, down the passage into the dining-room, where presently lunch would be laid for two. And straight ahead of her, facing the stairs, was the front door, which opened onto the little forecourt and the flagged path leading up to the porch. She went out. Some white pigeons were sunning themselves on the roof of the great barn. Its doors were propped open, and a farmhand came out, followed by two farm-horses, their hoofs going clop-clop after him, their harness clanking loosely, and their blinkers and the high peaks of their collars studded with shining brass nails. Their tails and mains were plated up with straw and red braid. Mrs. Martin nodded to the man, as he touched his cap to her, and stood looking after the horses, lumbering their way out towards the lane. She liked having the farm so close at hand, and had never thought of putting the barn, although it stood so near the house, forming one side of the forecourt, to any other than farm uses. She went across the court now, and looked into it. A smell of dust and sacking, gold motes in a shaft of sunlight, two farm wagons with red and blue wheels, a pile of yellow straw, and some trusses of hay. She was very well content. Behind the barn stood the rickyard, and here were the garnered stacks, pointed like witches' hats, a double row of them. The farm was doing well. When the time came, she would have a prosperous inheritance to be queathed to her son. She turned away from the shadows of the barn, and went through the door and the wall that led into the garden. It was quite warm, the ground steamed slightly, so that a faint mist hung low, and everything was wet, with but a dangerously narrow margin between the last splendor of autumn and its first sodden decay. She walked slowly up the garden path, looking at the bronze, red, yellow, and orange flowers that were bent down towards the ground by the moisture. She walked up to the path, swinging her scissors till she came to the clump of scotch furs at the top of the garden, and stood surveying the country that swept down to the valley, rising to the downs beyond. The woods in the valley golden through the mist, and blue smoke hanging above the deep violet pools of shadow between the woods and the hills. All unstirred by any breath, rust color and blue in every shade from the pale tan of the stubble to the fire of the woods, from the wreathing smoke blue to the depths of amethyst driven like wedges into the flanks of the downs. Below the clump of scotch furs, the ground fell away rapidly. In the valley gleamed a sudden silver twist of the river. The river was Mrs. Martin's boundary, the natural frontier to her eight hundred acres. They had not always been eight hundred acres. Once they had only been five hundred, and only thanks to stringent frugality and a certain astuteness on Mrs. Martin's part, had they been extended to that natural frontier which was the river. She could not think of that astuteness now without a measure of discomfort. Had she been quite as fair as she might have been, quite as scrupulous? Would she ever have persuaded Mr. Thistlethwaite to part with the required three hundred, if she hadn't canvassed for him quite so enthusiastically before the poll? Was she quite sure that she agreed with all his political convictions? Was she even sure that she understood them? She dismissed these qualms hurriedly and furtively when they nudged her. Anyway, the three hundred acres were hers, and whatever she had done she had done it for her son. Let that be her defense in everything. She would bring him out here after luncheon, and he would stand looking over the valley, and possibly he would say, as he had said once before, years ago, I wish our land went down as far as the river, don't you? And then in a great moment she would reply, it does. For she had never told him about the extra three hundred acres. She had kept that secret out of the long weekly letter she had written to him overseas during all the five years of his absence. There was no detail of her life that she hadn't told him. She had told him, separately, about each of her dinner parties, about the work on the farm, and about the agricultural experiments that she and Lines, the bailiff, were making, their failure or their success. She had kept him informed of all the events in the village. But the three hundred acres she had hugged to herself as a secret and a surprise. Lines was her accomplice. She had had to warn him that he must never let out the secret should he have occasion to write to Mr. Henry. He had created a great link between herself and Lines. There had, of course, been the danger that somebody or other in the district would be writing to Henry on other matters and would mention his mother's purchase. But up to the present it was clear from Henry's letters that no one had done so. He had written to her with fair regularity, though not so often as she could have wished. But then she would have liked a letter by every mail, as he received from her. And that was unreasonable. And though sometimes his letters were brief and clearly written in a hurry, she was too loyal to ask herself what he could possibly have to do with his evenings on a ranch where work would be finished by dusk. She turned back along the path and began cutting flowers wherewith she filled her basket. She cut very carefully where it would not show. No one else was allowed to cut the flowers. She was especially proud of this, her autumn border. On either side of the path, until it was brought up short at the end by the gray walls of the manor house, it smoldered in broad bands that repeated the colors of the autumn woods. Orange snapdragon, marigold, and mimulus flowing forward on to the flagged path, then the bronze of Coriopsis and Hellenium, cut by the lance-like spires of red-hot poker. And behind them the almost incredible brilliance of Dahlia's reared against the background of dark-yew hedge. The border streamed away like a flaming tongue from the cool gray of the house. She had worked very hard and studied much to bring it to its present perfection. Ten years of labor had at last been rewarded. Behind the yew hedges, to either side, were squares of old orchard, and the bright red apples knotted over the hedges like so many bright eyes peeping at the borders. In the grass under the apple trees, the bulbs lay dormant that in the spring speckled the orchards with grape hyacinths, anemones, and narcissae. But Mrs. Martin had forgotten about the spring. She was thinking as she cut sheaves from the Coriopsis, and more sparingly, from the snapdragons, that the autumn border was really the finest sight of the year, and that she was glad Henry should be coming now, and at no other time. In the house, where she had everything conveniently arranged in the garden room, a sink, taps, cloths for wiping the glasses, and a cupboard full of flower vases, she proceeded leisurely to do the flowers. No one had ever known Mrs. Martin be anything but leisurely. She always had plenty to occupy her time, but she was never hurried or ruffled. It was one of her greatest charms. She selected the flower vases with nice care. Some were of rough pottery, but those now stood on one side, for she consecrated them to the spring flowers and to the roses. Others were of glass, like green bubbles, glaucus and iridescent, light to the hand. For Mrs. Martin could not bear glasses that were not delicately blown, and as no one ever touched them except herself, they never got broken. She had a genius for handling fragility, quick and deft, and curiously tender. She was now wondering whether Henry's wife would someday stand in her place at the sink in the garden room. She often wondered this, for Henry's wife was a personage she had long since absorbed into her thoughts. She thought of her without bitterness or jealousy simply as a part of Henry, and consequently as another person to whom she would, in due course, have to hand over the house, the garden, and the estate, to render an account of her stewardship. Mrs. Martin was thinking about her as she snipped the ends off stalks that were too long, and lifted the vases that were already filled onto the tray, standing ready to receive them. It made no difference that Henry should not yet have come across his wife. She was not thereby entitled, in Mrs. Martin's eyes, to any separate existence of her own. She was Henry's wife, the future mistress, when Mrs. Martin was dead, of the house and all it contained. It had taken a very long time for Mrs. Martin's mind to grow accustomed to this idea, but now that it was there, she accepted it quite placidly, and it came up in its turn for examination amongst the other ideas, or was taken out when she wanted something to think about. She had even got into the way of saying to Lines or to the Gardener, I'm sure that Mrs. Henry would approve of that, and if, at first, they had been a little surprised, they had quickly come to take Mrs. Henry quite for granted. She had even an affection for Henry's wife. She liked to think of them living here together in the country, so far away from London, the country that was England although London forgot about it, and of Henry tramping over the eight hundred acres with a gun and a spaniel, while his wife stooped over the flowers in the walled garden, and she never doubted that they would frequently recall her who had made the place what it was, recall her with a sort of grudging tenderness. She was too humanly wise a woman to expect more than that, and say, The old lady ought to rest quietly in her grave. She carried the tray of flowers into the hall, and from there distributed them. A big vase of choreopsis on each window sill in the sitting room, a bowl of marigolds on the table, where the light of the lamp would fall straight onto them in the evening, a bowl of snap-dragons in the center of the hall, red and yellow nasturtiums on the dining room table. There remained two little pots of snap-dragon, which she took upstairs, and put on the dressing table in his bedroom. She came down again. The bronze of the flowers, she thought, suited the house, with its bits of oak paneling, the polished stairs of a golden brown, and the pile carpet of mouse brown in the sitting room. She was pleased with her survey, though a little tired. She heaved the sigh of happy tiredness. Five years alone here, alone except for the neighbors, and although she liked being alone, and was quite content between lines and her garden in the daytime, and her books in the evening, she was very glad that Henry, who was really her unseen and constant companion, at the back of her mind in everything she did, should be coming back to her at last. Three. She watched the motor as it drove off to the station. She had had it opened, and had sent a number of coats and rugs with it, lest Henry should be cold. By this time she was completely tired out, having pursued her self-imposed business down to its minutest detail. But the consciousness that she had done everything she had to do, buoyed her up with the pleasure of virtue. Although she knew that she could not expect the motor back for at least half an hour, she enveloped herself in an old brown cape, and went to sit on the little bench in the porch. The mist had by now been completely dispersed by the sun, which had rolled it away in curls and shavings of vapor, that clung about the trees as though reluctant to go, and finally melted away, leaving a day full of damp gold, with the pheasants calling in the distance along the margins of the fields nearest to the coppices. Mrs. Martin sat in the porch with her feet propped up on the opposite bench. She rested contentedly, folding her old brown cloak round her, and letting her head nod under its big black straw hat as she dozed. She looked like some old shepherd nodding after his dinner-hour. The pigeons came and pecked about under her feet for stray grains of maize, and were joined by some chickens from the farmyard that came scurrying across the court, the big Rhode Island Reds, and the white Wyandots, with their bright yellow legs, prinking round and squawking as all their heads met in a rush over the same grain. Mrs. Martin smiled as she dozed, like a mother smiling indulgently at the squabble of her children. The sunlight fell in a sharp line across the flagstone of the porch. Little bright drops of moisture formed on the hairy tweed of Mrs. Martin's cloak, where her gentle and regular breathing blew down the front of it. She had not meant to go to sleep. She would not have believed that she could go to sleep while she was actually waiting for the arrival of Henry, five years, and then at the end of it, to sleep. But she was old, and she had been busy all the morning, and she was tired. She slept on, with the pigeons and chickens still pecking, quietly now, under her feet. Story 4 Her Son 4 Henry was there. He arrived cheerfully and full of good will. If, coming down in the train, three hours. How could anyone, good Lord, so bury themselves in the country when they weren't obliged to? If, coming down in the train, he had drilled himself, rather deliberately, into the suitable frame of mind, at the actual moment of his arrival, he found himself unexpectedly invaded by a rush of genuine pleasure. He had been touched by the sudden sight of his mother asleep in the porch, wrapped in the same old cloak which he well remembered. Her cheek, when he kissed it, had been so cool and soft and naturally scented, and her confusion and delight had both been so sweet and so candid. They went into the house together, eagerly. He put down his hat and coat on the same coffer which was in its unaltered place, and still the warm of homecoming had not deserted him. She took his arm and led him towards the sitting-room. Not much change, you see, Henry. I had to have new covers for the chairs and the sofa, and I thought it would be nice to have them a little different, but everything else is just the same. Now I expect you'd like to go to your room and wash. I've had some hot water put there for you, and luncheon will be ready in five minutes. He splashed over his basin, looking round his room, meanwhile, and thinking how clean and fresh it was, and how jolly the view out of the window, with the river shining down in the valley, washing his hands with an energy that brought the soap up into an instant lather, and as he dried them on the soft huckaback of the fringed towel, he smiled to himself, for he remembered the old joke of his mother's niceness over such things as linen. He unpacked his brushes and brushed his hair vigorously. It was sleek and black, and he brushed it till it shone like a top hat. He ran downstairs, jumping the last six steps, and shouting out to his mother. He felt quite boyish. He put his hand through her arm, then drew her out to the porch, where they stood while they waited for luncheon. He held her arm close to his side in a possessive way. They were both very gay, and rather tremulous. 5. How well you look, Henry, and so brown! Why, you might be twenty instead of nearly thirty. Now, what do you want to drink? Claret? Beer? Cider? Try a little of our cider. It's homemade. Last season's brew, and I think we have got it in exactly the right measure of wheat. It is so easy to make a mistake, to put in too little or too much. But I think last autumn we got it just right. But Henry did not care for cider. He preferred whiskey and soda. 6. Have what you like, of course, dear boy! Here are my keys, Sanford. Get the bottle of whiskey out of the cupboard, please, and bring it for Mr. Henry, and let me have the keys back. Dear me, Henry, we both have so much to say to one another that it makes us quite silent. I scarcely know where to begin. Never mind. It will all come out little by little, and we have plenty of time before us. I have made a great plan of all I want to show you this afternoon. You must come round to the farm after luncheon and speak to Lines. And I dare say he will like to have a whole day with you going over things, tomorrow or the day after that. 7. She beamed at him where he sat opposite to her at the end of the table, and he smiled back at her. She thought how nice-looking he was with his lean brown face and black hair. He had the look of hard health. She remembered how well he had always looked in the saddle. It had, indeed, been a great incentive to have this son to work for, to guard his interests, to build up the perfect little estate for him to inherit. The studious evenings she had spent had not been wasted, all that she had learned conscientiously, for she would never trust wholly to Lines' experience about manures, the rotation of crops, the advantage of fat stock over dairy produce. All that laboriously acquired knowledge in the service of such a son had not been useless. It wasn't in the nature of women she had decided long ago to work solely for the sake of the work. And this was one of the things she often said, particularly when the subject of women's emancipation was mentioned. How impressed he would be after luncheon when she took him out. He would expect her to know about the garden. The garden had always been her specialty. But he should find that she wasn't a docile ignoramus about the farm, a mere writer of checks to Lines' dictation. She beamed at him again, hugging her satisfaction to herself. She was glad that she had not been born a man, to work for work's own cold, ungrateful sake, but a woman, to work for the warm appreciation in a fellow being's eyes. And Henry was charming her, as she had expected to be charmed. He chaffed her a little, and she fell into a little confusion, not knowing whether to take him seriously, until she perceived that he was laughing, and then she reproached him for teasing an old woman, and they laughed happily together. He saw that he was being a success, and expanded under the flattery. He teased her about her old cloak. She found an exquisite thrill in the proprietary intimacy with which this man, who was like a stranger to her, was treating her. She blushed and bridled, and the more she bridled, the more fondly he teased. His eyes were narrowed into laughing slits. He leaned over to her, as he might have leaned, confidentially, over to any woman with whom he happened to be lunching. She thought, with a queer envy, of the future, Mrs. Henry, and the thought made her ask abruptly, You've nothing to tell me about yourself? You're not engaged, I mean, or thinking of it? Henry looked taken aback by the question. Then he threw back his head and laughed. Good Lord! Who too? You forget I've been in the heart of the Argentine for five years. Oh, no, I don't forget, she said softly, thinking how little she had forgotten. But one finds old friends in London, I don't know. For a moment he seemed embarrassed. It passed. I've not been in London forty-eight hours, and I had plenty of other things to do there. He said it glibly, hoping she would not wonder what he had done with his evenings. She did not wonder, her imagination not readily extending to restaurants or dancing places, or the bare shoulders of women under a slipping opera cloak. She had forgotten about those things. It was so long since they had come her way, even remotely. And in spite of her benevolence towards Mrs. Henry, she was conscious of a fugitive relief. Then I needn't feel selfish about keeping you here, she said, and it will be a nice rest for you after your journey and all the business you had to do in London. Now if you have quite finished, might we go out? It gets dark so quickly. They went out. Already the fresh beauty of the day was passing. It was colder, and there was more grey and less gold between the trees. Let us go up to the top of the garden, said Mrs. Martin, who felt she could not bear to keep the secret of the three hundred acres to herself a moment longer. Six. They went slowly up the garden path between the flaming borders that flamed less now that the sun was no longer on them. She noted the difference, and was sorry they should not be showing themselves off at their best. Nevertheless, Henry said, how jolly your flowers are, mother, and she was satisfied. She had taken his arm. From her other hand swung her inseparable companion the garden basket, and from sheer habit she kept a sharp look out for a possible weed, even though Henry was there. She knew now, now that he was there, how lonely had been her wanderings up that garden path, and how hollow really had been her gardening triumphs since there was no one to admire them and to share. Not that she had ever faced the fact, for it was not her habit to face facts. But now, since it had become a fact only in the past, she could allow herself to turn round and wave it a little belated valedictory gesture of recognition. She pressed Henry's arm ever so slightly against her side. Not enough for him to notice, only enough to give herself assurance and comfort. Stupid of her not to have realized how much she wanted Henry. He had been always in the background, of course, and she had trained herself to think that that was enough. Perhaps it was fortunate, rather than stupid. She would have wanted him too much, if once she had let herself begin to think about it. It was pleasant to have the physical support of his arm to lean on. It was surprisingly pleasant to have the moral support of his presence. She had had to carry all the responsibility herself for so long, the responsibility of decisions, all the loneliness of command. And although she was quite well aware of her own efficiency, she felt that she was growing a little tired and would be happy to let some of the responsibility slide off onto Henry's shoulders. When Lines was obstinate, as he sometimes was, it would be a comfort to reply that he must discuss the matter with Mr. Henry. At the end of this train of thought, she said confidently to Henry, You won't be going back to the Argentine any more, dear, will you? Henry emerged startled from a parallel train of thought that he had been following. The first warm excitement of his homecoming had passed, and he was beginning to wonder what he should do, when once his mother had had her fill of showing him all which she had vaguely threatened to show, and which he did not particularly want to see. Already, with reaction, things were a little flat. But he answered, without any perceptible pause, No, no more Argentine for me, I'm fed up with the place. He was, the solitude, the rough life, had not been to his taste. He had grown to hate the plains and the stupid ubiquitous cattle, and the endless cattle talk. No more Argentine for him. He had had the experience, he had made the money he wanted to make, now he wanted the pleasure to which he thought he was entitled. That's nice, said Mrs. Martin comfortably. It will be nice for me to have you at home in my old age. Henry let this remark pass. He hated inflicting disappointment, and there would be plenty of time in which to make his plans clear to his mother. In the meantime she was so obviously happy, a pity to throw a shadow over her first day. They reached the top of the path and the clump of furs. Mrs. Martin's heart was beating hard, and a little pink flush had appeared on her cheeks. It was not, after all, every day that one reached a moment one had anticipated for nearly five years. She wished she had had the strength of mind to wait until the following morning, before bringing Henry here, for the country was lovelier under the morning mists than now in the cruder light of the afternoon. But she had been too much excited, too impatient. They stood there looking down over the valley, across it to the downs. She let him look his fill. Better than the Argentine, Henry? By Jove, yes. I should think so. Better than the Argentine. She gave a chuckle of happiness. She dealt her secret out to him in small doses, like the old Epicurean she was. Isn't it nice to think, Henry, that those fields and woods belong to you? But they don't, he said. They belong to you. Well, doesn't that amount to the same thing? Oh, no, he said. Not at all the same thing. And the difference in his mind was that whereas she loved and wanted the fields and woods, their possession would have bored him. Dear Henry, that is just an evasion. You know that it amounts to the same thing, really? Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that they belong to us both. All right, he said, humoring her. Do you remember, she went on. We used to say how nice it would be if our property went down as far as the river. Did we? Doesn't it? No, I don't remember, he said absently. But Henry, think, darling. Well, it does now, right down to the river. How splendid, he replied, feeling that he was expected to say something of the sort. But didn't it always? End of Story 4, Sections 4-6 The Air by Vita Sackville West This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Story 4, Her Son 7. She went into no explanation. She did not remind him of the three hundred acres required to round off the estate. Nor did she make the confession which she had been saving up, like a guilty child of how she had got round the obstinacy of Mr. Thistleweight. She made some quiet reply to his last remark and went on talking of other things. He was perfectly oblivious to the moment that had come and gone. And she, in her mind, was already making excuses for him. He had been away for so long he had grown accustomed to such vast districts where three hundred acres must seem paltry indeed. When they had looked sufficiently at the view, she returned down the path beside him. Her hand still slipped into the crook of his arm, without the slightest resentment. Henry, she could never harbor resentment against Henry. But a little of the eagerness was gone. Not much. Only the first edge taken off. She struggled to restore it. She had an uneasy feeling of disloyalty towards Henry. And really, he had been so very charming. Nothing could have been more charming, or more to her taste, than his manner towards her from the very first moment when he had bent to kiss her in the porch. Fond but deferential. Intimate but courteous. Henry was the sort of man who would always be courteous towards women, even when the woman happened to be his own mother. Mrs. Martin greatly appreciated courtesy. She often said that it was becoming rarer and more rare. Certainly Henry's manner had been perfect in every respect. And she was seized with remorse that she could have directed against him so much as the criticism of a passing disappointment. She must not admit to herself that the edge of her eagerness was blunted. And she began forcing herself to talk of Lines and the Farm. And presently, because Henry listened with so much attention and interest, she found her eagerness creeping back. They went round to the rickyard together, where Lines, in his britches and leather-gaters, was talking to the Carter, but broke off to come towards Henry, who shook hands with him while Mrs. Martin stood by, beaming upon their meeting. She was enchanted with Henry. He asked Lines questions about the cattle, and followed him into the door of the shed, where the afternoon's milking was in progress. Mrs. Martin waited for them near the ricks, because she did not like the dirty cobbles of the farmyard. She was perfectly happy again. This was what she had always foreseen. And she liked things to turn out exactly according to the picture she had been in the habit of making in advance of her own mind. She was only disconcerted when they fell out differently. How good was Henry's manner with Lines? She watched the two men as they stood in the doorway of the cowshed. Henry had said something, and Lines was laughing. He pushed back his cap off his forehead, and scratched his head. And she heard him say, That's right, sir. That's just about the size of it. Her heart swelled with pride in Henry. He was getting on with Lines. Lines approved of him. That was obvious. And Lines' approval was not easily won. He was a scornful man, not always very tractable either, and very contemptuous of most people's knowledge of agriculture. But here he was, approving of Henry. Her own esteem of Henry rose in proportion, as she saw Lines' esteem. She felt that a little of the credit belonged to her for being Henry's mother. They came towards her, walking slowly and talking, across the soft ground of the rickyard, where the cartwheels had cut deep ruts, and the wisps of straw were sodden into the black earth. It was a great satisfaction to her to see Henry and Lines thus together. She was the impresario exhibiting them to one another. The afternoon was drawing very gently to a close, a little cold, perhaps, a little gray, but still tender, a dove-like gray hovering over the trees, over the ricks, and over the barn with the yellow lichen on the roof. A tang of damp farmyard was not unpleasantly on the air. We'll go in now, shall we, Henry? It's getting chilly, said Mrs. Martin, wrapping herself more closely in her brown cloak, and nodding and smiling to Lines. As they went towards the house, Henry said, looking down at her in that confidential way he had. Well, that's a great duty accomplished, isn't it? Duty, Henry? Yes, talking to Lines, I mean. Oh, talking to Lines! To be sure! You were so nice to him, dear boy! Thank you! Duty! The word gave her a small chill. She bent over the fire in the sitting-room, poking it into a blaze. The logs fell apart, then shot up into flame. I do like a wood fire, said Mrs. Martin. She held out her hands toward it. They were cold. She had not known, until that moment, how cold she had been. Eight. They were at dinner. How nice Henry looked in his evening clothes! She liked his lean brown hands, and the gesture with which he smoothed back his hair. She smiled fondly as she thought how attractive all women must find Henry. Life on a ranch had not coarsened him, far from it. He was sensitive and masculine both, an ideal combination. Dear Henry, she murmured. He leaned over and padded her hand, but there was an absent look in his eyes, and his manner was slightly more perfunctory than it had been at luncheon. Anyone but Mrs. Martin would have suspected that he could assume that manner at will, had in fact assumed it often, towards many women who had misinterpreted it, and whom he had forgotten as soon as they were out of sight. They had reproached him sometimes. There was a fair echo of reproaches in Henry's life. He had always felt aggrieved when they reproached him. Couldn't they understand that he was kind-hearted, really? That he only wanted to please, to make life agreeable? He hated saying anything disagreeable to anybody, but greatly preferred enrolling them among the victims of his charm, which he could turn on at a moment's notice like turning on a tap, and if they misunderstood him, he did not consider that he had been to blame. Not that he remained to argue the matter out. It was far easier, in most cases, simply to go right away instead without giving any explanation, right away to where the clamour that was sure to arise would not reach his ears at all. And sometimes, when he had not managed so skillfully as usual, and things had been briefly tiresome, he would criticize himself to the extent of thinking that he was a damned fool to have incorrigibly so little foresight of where the easy path was leading him. Yet he was not quite right about this, for he was perfectly well able to recognize the progress of his own drifting, but he recognized it as though it applied to some other person, in whose affairs he was himself unable to interfere. He watched himself, as he might have watched another man, thinking, meanwhile, with an amused contempt and a certain compassion, how the dickens is he going to get himself out of this? End of Story 4, Sections 7 and 8 He could, if he had been so inclined, have observed the process at work after dinner, when his mother seated with knitting in an arm chair on one side of the fire, and he with a cigar in another arm chair on the other side of the fire, his legs stretched out straight to the blaze, they talked intermittently, a conversation in which the future played more part than the past. Henry found that his mother had definite ideas about the future, ideas which she took for granted that he would share. He knew that he ought to say at once that he did not share them, but that would entail disappointing his mother, and this he was reluctant to do, at any rate, on the first day. Poor old lady, let her be happy. What was the good of sending her to bed worried? In a day or two he would give her a hint. He remembered that she was not usually slow at taking a hint. He hoped she would not make a fuss. Really, it would be unreasonable if she made a fuss. She could not seriously expect him to spend his life in talking to lines. But for the present let her keep her illusions. She seemed so greatly to enjoy telling him about her farm, and he needn't listen. He could say yes and fancy from time to time, since that seemed to satisfy her, and, meanwhile, he could think about Isabelle. He had promised Isabelle that he would not be away for more than three days at the outside. He hoped he would not find it too difficult to get away back to London at the end of three days. There would be a fuss if he went, but, on the other hand, Isabelle would make a far worse fuss if he stayed. Isabelle was not as easygoing as he could have wished, though her flares of temper, when they were not so prolonged, as to become inconvenient, amused him and constituted part of the attraction she had for him. He rendered to Isabelle the homage that she attracted him just as much now as five years ago, before he left for the Argentine. She had even improved in the interval. Improved with experience, he told himself cynically, not resenting the experience in the least. She had improved in appearance, too, having found her type, and he recalled the shock of delight with which he had seen her again. The curious pale eyes and the hard line of the clubbed black hair cut square across her brows. Certainly Isabelle had attraction and was as wild as she could be. Not a woman one could neglect with impunity if one didn't want her to be off and away. No, there was a flick and a spirit about Isabelle. That was what he liked. How his mother would disapprove of Isabelle. He sent out, to disguise a little chuckle, a long stream of smoke, and the thought of his mother's disapproval tickled him much. His mother, rambling on about foot-and-mouth disease, and about how afraid they had been last year, that it would come across into Gloucestershire, while Isabelle, probably, was at some supper-party, sitting on a table and singing to her guitar those moorish songs in her husky, seductive voice. He was not irritated with his mother for her difference. At another moment he might have been irritated, but at present he was too comfortable, too warm, too full of a good dinner to find her unconsciousness anything but diverting. And as the contrast appeared to him more and more as a good joke, he encouraged her with sympathetic comments and with the complement of his grave attention, so that she put behind her, finally and entirely, the disappointment she had had over the three hundred acres, and expounded to him all her dearest schemes, leaning forward, tapping him on the knee with her long knitting needle to enforce her points, enlisting his sympathy in all her difficulties with lines and lines' obstinacy, exactly as she had planned to do, and as, up to the present, she had not secured a very good opportunity of doing. This was ideal. To sit by the fireside after dinner with Henry, long slender, nodding gravely, his eyes on the fire, intent with concentration, and to pour out to him all the little grievances of years, and the satisfactions too, for she did not believe in dwelling only upon what went wrong, but also upon that which went right. And so you see, dear boy, I have really been able to make both ends meet. It was a little difficult at times I owned, but now I am bound to say the farm is paying very nicely. Lines could show you the account books any time. I think perhaps you are to run your eye over them. You must have picked up a lot of useful knowledge out there. Oh, yes, said Henry broadly. Well, it will all come in very useful here, won't it? Although I dare say English practice is different in many ways. I could see that Lines very quickly discovered that you knew what you were talking about. It will be a great thing for me, Henry, a very great thing to have your support and advice in future. Henry made an attempt. He said, But if I don't happen to be on the spot? Oh, well, you won't be very far away, said Mrs. Martin comfortably. Even if you do like to have rooms in London, I could always get you at a moment's notice. Henry found great consolation in this remark. He'd offered a loophole, and he readily placed his faith in loopholes. He was also relieved, because he considered, his mother having said that, there was no necessity now for him to say anything. Let her prattle about the estate, and about the use he was going to be to her. There would always be, now, those rooms in London in which he could take refuge. Why, you suggested it yourself, he could say, raising a grieved eyebrows if any discussion arose in the future. It was true that her next observations diminished the value of his loophole, but he chose to ignore that. What was said was said. Rooms in London, Christmas with his mother, and perhaps a weekend in the summer, and a couple of days shooting in the autumn. He wouldn't mind a little rough shooting, and had already ascertained from lines that there were a good many partridges and a few pheasants, and he could always take back some birds to Isabelle. He saw himself, on the station platform, with his flat gun case and cartridge bag, and the heavy bundle of limp game, rabbits, partridges, and pheasants, tied together by the legs. He would go out to-morrow, and see what he could pick up for Isabelle. His mother would never object. She would think the game was for his own use, in those rooms she, thank goodness, so conveniently visualized. And if it wasn't for Isabelle, in future years, well, no doubt it would be for somebody else. He awoke from these plans to what his mother was saying. I don't think it would be good for you to live entirely in the country, so I shall drive you away, Henry dear, whenever you show signs of becoming a vegetable. I shall be able to carry on perfectly well without you, as I have done all these years. You need never worry about that. Besides, you must go to London to look for Mrs. Henry. What? said Henry, genuinely startled. His mother said, smiling, that some day he would have to marry. She would like to know her grandchildren before she died. There was the long attic at the top of the house, which they could have as a playroom. Sure there is no one? she questioned him again, more urgently, more archly this time, and he denied it laughing, to reassure her, and suddenly the laughter which he had affected became hearty, for he had thought of Isabelle, Isabelle whom he would never dream of marrying, and who would never dream of marrying him. Isabelle, insolent, lackadaisical, exasperating, with the end of a cigarette, a fag, she called it, smoldering between her lips. Isabelle, with her hands stuck in the pockets of her velveteen jacket, and her short black hair, Isabelle holding forth, perched on the corner of a table, contradicting him, getting angry, pushing him away when he tried to catch hold of her and kiss her. Oh, you think the idea of marrying funny enough now, said his mother, sagely, hearing him laugh, but you may be coming to me with a very different tale in a few months' time. He was in a thoroughly good temper by now, he lunged deeper into his armchair, and he stirred the logs with his foot. Good cigars, these, mother! he said, critically examining the one he took from between his teeth. Who advises you about cigars? Mr. Thistleweight recommended those. Mrs. Martin replied, enchanted. Mr. Thistleweight? Who's Mr. Thistleweight? asked Henry. She had an impulse to tell him, even now, the story of Mr. Thistleweight and the 300 acres, to ask him whether he thought she had acted very unscrupulously. But a funny inexplicable pride held her back. She said quietly that Mr. Thistleweight was the local MP. Henry, to her relief, betrayed no further interest. He continued to stir the fire absently with the toe of his shoe, and his mother, watching him, looked down a long vista of such evenings, when the lamp light would fall on to the bowl of flowers, she placed so skillfully to receive it, and on the black satin head of Henry. 10. She opened her window before getting into bed, and looked out upon a clear night and the low-lying mists of autumn. It was very still, the church clock chimed, a dog barked in the distance, and the breathless silence spread once more like a lake round the ripple of those sounds. She looked towards that bit of England, which was sufficient to her, milky and invisible. She thought of the ricks standing in the silent rickyard, and the sleeping beasts nearby in the sheds. She, who had been brisk and practical for so many years, became a little dreamy. Then, besturing herself, she crossed the room to bed. All was in order, a glass of milk by the bed, a box of matches, a clean handkerchief, her big repeater watch. She wound it carefully, and put it away under the many pillows. She sank luxuriously into the pillows, that little pleasure which was every night renewed. She thought to herself that she was really almost too happy. Such happiness was a pain. There was no means of expressing it. She could not shout and sing, so it had to be bottled up, and the compression was plain, exquisitely. For about five minutes, during which she lived with a swimming head, through a lifetime of sensations, she lay awake. Then amongst her pillows she fell asleep. 11. Next morning she was awakened by some sound she could not at first define, but which she presently identified as the remote ringing of the telephone bell. She listened. The servants would answer it, of course, but she wondered who could be calling the house so early in the day. Feeling very wide awake, she slipped into her dressing gown and slippers, and went to the top of the stairs to listen. She heard Henry's voice downstairs in the hall. 12. Yes, yes, hello, yes, I'm here. Is that you, darling? Sorry to ring you up at this hour, but later on every word I said would be overheard. Yes, infernally public. He laughed softly. No, I don't suppose anyone ever uses this telephone for purposes they'd rather keep to themselves. Oh, all right, thanks. Pleased to see me? Yes, I think so. Look here, things are going to be juiced awkward. Well, she expects me to spend most of my time here. Yes, an awful bore. Oh, well, it's natural enough, I suppose. Five years and all that, don't you know? Well, but what am I to say? Can't be too brutal, can one? Oh, bored stiff in two days, of course. I simply don't know what to do about it. Besides, I'm dying to get back to you. Yes, silly, of course. I wish you'd help, Isabel. Tell me what to say to the old lady. No, she seems to take it quite for granted. Oh, all the year round, with an occasional week in London. I can't say I think it in the least funny. Well, of course, if I was a downright brute. Mrs. Martin turned and went back into her bedroom. She shut the door very gently behind her. Presently she heard Henry come upstairs and go into his room. End of Story 4 The Air by Vita Sackville West This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Story 5. The Parrot 1. Once upon a time there was a small green parrot with a coral coloured head. It should have lived in Uruguay, but actually it lived in Pimlico, in a cage, a piece of apple stuck between the bars at one end of its perch, and a lump of sugar between the bars at the other. It was well cared for, its drinking water was fresh every day, the seed in its little troth was daily renewed, and the cage stood on a table in the window to get the yellow sunlight that occasionally penetrated the muslin curtains. The room, furthermore, was well warmed, and all cats and such dangers kept rigorously away. In spite of all this, the bird was extremely disagreeable. If anyone went to stand beside its cage, in order to admire its beautiful and brilliant colouring, it took refuge in a corner, buried its head beneath the seed troth, and screamed on a harsh, shrill note, like a pig in the shambles. Whenever it believed itself to be unobserved, it returned to the eternal and unavailing occupation of trying to get out of its cage. In early days, it had had a cage of less substantial make. Being a strong little bird, it had contrived to loosen a bar and to make its escape once or twice into the room. But, consequent on this, a more adequate cage had been procured, the bars of which merely twanged like harp strings under the assault of the beak, and yielded not at all. Nevertheless, the parrot was not discouraged. It had twenty-four hours out of every day at its disposal, and three hundred and sixty-five days out of every year. It worked at the bars with its beak, it stuck its feet against the sides, and tugged at the bar. Once it discovered how to open the door, after which the door had to be secured with a piece of string. The owners of the parrot explained to it that, should it make good its escape from the house, it would surely fall a prey to a cat, a dog, or a passing motor. And if to none of these things, then to the climate of England, which in no way resembled the climate of Uruguay. When they stood beside its cage, giving those explanations, it got down into the corner, cowered, and screamed. The parrot was looked after by the underhousemaid, a slaternly girl of eighteen, with smudges of coal on her apron, and a smear of violet eyes in a white, sickly face. She used to talk to the parrot, while she was cleaning out the tray at the bottom of the cage, confiding to it all her perplexities, which she could safely do without fear of being overheard, by reason of the din the parrot maintained meanwhile. In spite of its lack of response, she had for the parrot a passion which transformed it into a symbol. Its jade green and coral seemed to give her a hint of something marvelously far removed from Pimlico. Her fifteen minutes with the parrot every morning remained the one fabulous excursion of her day. It was a journey to Baghdad, a peep into the caves of Aladdin. Casting down their golden crowns upon a glassy sea, she murmured in a hodgepodge of religion and romance, for the two in her mind were plated together into an unexplained but beautiful braid that was a source of confusion, rapture, and a strange unhappiness. Apart from the function of cleaning out the cage, which she performed with efficiency, she was, considered as a housemaid, a failure. Perpetually in trouble, she tried to mend her ways, would turn energetic, would scrub and polish, then, as she relapsed into daydreams, the most important part of her work would be left forgotten. Skolding and exasperation stormed around her ears. Sometimes she appeared disheartened and indifferent. Sometimes she gazed in a scared fashion at the indignant authority, and said about her work with a dazed vehemence. But Black Lead and Brasso remained to her, in spite of her efforts, of small significance. Meanwhile the parrot gave up the attempt to get out of its cage, and spent its days moping upon the topmost perch. Two Peace reigned in the house. The parrot no longer tore at its bars or screamed, and as for the underhousemaid, she was a transformed creature, punctual, orderly, competent, and unobtrusive. The cook said she didn't know what had come over the bird and the girl. According to her ideas, the situation was now most satisfactory. The two rebels had at last fallen into line with the quiet conduct of the house, and there was no longer anything to complain of, either in the sitting-room or the basement. It would have been hypocritical to complain that the girl's quietness was disconcerting. When her tasks were done she retired to her bedroom, where she might be found at any moment sitting with her hands lying in her lap, the violet eyes looking out of the window. Well, if she chose so to spend her time. The parrot sat huddled on its perch, flaunting in plumage indeed, for that was beyond its control, but irreproachable in demeanor. It appeared almost to apologize by its humility, for the garishness of color wherewith nature had afflicted it. One morning the cook came down as was her custom, and found the following note addressed to her propped up on the kitchen dresser. Dear Mrs. White, I have gone to wear the golden crown, but I have lit the stoke-hole and laid the breakfast. Very much annoyed and wondering what tricks the girl had been up to, she climbed the stairs to the girl's bedroom. The room had been tidied and the slops emptied away, and the girl was lying dead upon the bed. She flew downstairs with the news. In the sitting-room, where she collided with her mistress, she noticed the parrot on its back on the floor of the cage, its two legs sticking stiffly up into the air. End of Story 5. End of the Air by Vita Sackville-West, recording by Lee Smolley