Chapter 2

Nell put on her hat and coat and started for school. A neat, shabby little figure, with her town hat pulled down over her soft hair, she walked quickly between dust-powdered hedges to Brownbread Street, panting a little, because she was an?mic, and also because she was still a trifle indignant. Nell did not view life and the War as her family viewed them. Her different education had made them not quite such matters of bread-and-cheese. She alone at Worge had felt the humiliation—as distinct from the inconvenience—of Tom’s conscription. She had always despised him because he did not volunteer during the early stages of the War, and when the Conscription Act came into force she despised him still more for his appeal to the Tribunal. She felt that she could never think proudly of him, knowing how unwillingly he had gone, knowing that he cared for nothing except leaving Worge, that he never thought of the great cause of righteousness he was to fight for, or understood the mighty issues of his unwilling warfare.

The rest of the family were all of a block. To her mother the War was merely a matter of prices and scarcities, to her father it was drink restrictions and the closing of public-houses, to Ivy it was picture postcards and boys in khaki, to Harry the unwilling performance of tasks which would otherwise have been done by more efficient hands, to Zacky the obscure man?uvres of a gang of small boys whose imaginations had been touched by militarism. To Nell alone belonged the fret and anxiety of the times, the shock of bad news, the struggle [69] of ineffectual small labours to win her a place in the great woe.

To-day she was early for school, as she had meant to be, for at the church she stopped and sat down in the porch. St. Wilfred’s, Brownbread Street, was only a chapel-of-ease under the mother church of Dallington. It was new-built of sandstone, an unfortunate symbol of that Rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. The interior, glimpsed through the open door, was dim and medi?val, the first effect due to the deep tones of the stained-glass windows, where the saints wore robes of crimson and sapphire and passional violet, and the latter to the several dark oil paintings, and the thick gilt tracery of the screen, through which the altar showed richly coloured, with one winking red light before it.

The curate-in-charge of Brownbread Street was of medi?val tendencies, and did his best, both in service and sermon, to transport his congregation from the woodbine-age to the age of pilgrimages and monasteries, with the result that, with unmedi?val licence, they sought illicit and heretical refreshment in Georgian Bethels and Victorian Tabernacles, where they could sing good Moody and Sankey tunes, instead of treacherous Gregorians and wobbling Plainsong.

But Nell loved the low, soft, creeping tones of Gregory’s mode, loved the dimness, the mystery, the faint echo of Sarum ... and if in her love was a personal element which she denied, the church was not less a refuge from the coarse frustrations of her everyday life, such as the Forge was to Mr. Sumption and the Shop had been to Tom.

To-day the priest was at the altar, saying the Last Gospel. Nell could just see him from where she sat. He would be out in a couple of minutes. She watched him glide off into the shadows, then she rose and walked [70] down to the little wicket-gate, where the path from the porch met the path from the vestry. There was more colour in her cheeks than usual.

Now and then she looked anxiously across the road at the schoolhouse clock, where the large hand was creeping swiftly towards the hour. From the clock her eyes slewed round to the vestry door. At last the handle shook, and out came Mr. Poullett-Smith, walking hurriedly, with his cassock flapping round his legs. He did not seem to see Nell till he had nearly walked into her.

“Oh—er—good morning, Miss Beatup. I beg your pardon.”

“Good morning, Mr. Poullett-Smith. I—I wanted to tell you I’m so sorry I haven’t finished that book you lent me. I’m afraid I’ve kept it a terrible time.”

Her words came with a rush, blurred faintly in the last of a Sussex accent, and her eyes were fixed on his face with an almost childish eagerness which he could scarcely fail to notice.

“Oh, please don’t trouble. Keep the book as long as you like—the Sermons of St. Gregory, isn’t it?”

“Yes—I think they’re wonderful,” breathed Nell, hoping he would never know how difficult she found them to understand.

“They are indeed, and so stimulating.”

The Rev. Henry Poullett-Smith was a tall man, with a long nose, a slight stoop, and a waxy brownish skin that made him look like one of his own altar candles. As he spoke to Nell, he kept on glancing up the street, and when a girl on a bicycle came round the corner, he moved a few steps out into the road and took off his hat.

“Good morning, Miss Lamb.”

Marian Lamb, who was in Red Cross uniform, jumped off her bicycle and shook hands with him before she shook hands with Nell Beatup.

[71]

“On your way to the hospital, I see.”

“Yes. I’m on morning duty this week.”

“Do you prefer that to the afternoons?”

“Not in summer. I do in winter, though.”

Nell felt ignored and insulted. She made no effort to join in this sprightly dialogue. There was something in the curate’s manner towards the other girl which seemed to stab her through with a sense of her inferiority, with memories of the coarse, muddling life of Worge to which she belonged. It was not that he showed more courtesy, but he seemed to show more freedom ... he was more at his ease with one of his own class.

Her cheeks burned. Of course she was not his equal. He might talk to her and lend her books, but he did it only out of kindness; probably looked upon it as a superior form of parish relief—doled the books as he doled blankets.... She shrugged away, and the movement made him at once turn to her with a remark:

“Have you been over the hospital, Miss Beatup?”

“No—I’ve never had time ... and I must hurry off now. Good morning!”

Even as she spoke she noticed that her voice was thick and drawly, unlike Miss Lamb’s sharp, clear tones. She gripped her satchel and hurried across the road to the schoolhouse.