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 UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
LOLLY 
 WILLOWES 
 
 Seer 
 
 OR THE LOVING 
 HUNTSMAN 
 
 By 
 
 SYLVIA TOWNSEND 
 WARNER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE VIKING PRESS 
 
 1926 
 
Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Copyright, 1926, by 
 THE VIKING PRESS, INC. 
 
 Published in January, 1926 
 Second printing, February, 1926 
 Third printing, April, 1926 
 Fourth printing, April, 1926 
 Fifth printing, April, 1926 
 
To 
 BEA ISABEL HOWE 
 
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 maT 
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 ee) 
 . 
 ? 
 
 hy 
 
LOLLY 
 WILLOWES 
 
 Part 1. 
 
 HEN her father died, Laura Willowes 
 went to live in London with her elder 
 brother and his family. 
 
 “Of course,” said Caroline, “you will come 
 to us.” 
 
 “But it will upset all your plans. It will 
 give you so much trouble. Are you sure you 
 really want me?” 
 
 “Oh dear, yes.” 
 
 Caroline spoke affectionately, but her thoughts 
 were elsewhere. ‘They had already journeyed 
 back to London to buy an eiderdown for the 
 bed in the small spare-room. If the washstand 
 were moved towards the door, would it be 
 possible to fit in a writing-table between it and 
 the fireplace? Perhaps a bureau would be bet- 
 ter, because of the extra drawers? Yes, that 
 
 I 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 was it. Lolly could bring the little walnut 
 bureau with the false handles on one side and 
 the top that jumped up when you touched the 
 spring by the ink-well. It had belonged to 
 Lolly’s mother, and Lolly had always used it, 
 so Sibyl could not raise any objections. Sibyl 
 had no claim to it whatever, really. She had 
 only been married to James for two years, and 
 if the bureau had marked the morning-room 
 wall-paper, she could easily put something else 
 in its place. A stand with ferns and potted 
 plants would look very nice. 
 
 Lolly was a gentle creature, and the little 
 girls loved her; she would soon fit into her new 
 home. ‘The small spare-room would be rather 
 a loss. ‘They could not give up the large spare- 
 room to Lolly, and the small spare-room was 
 the handiest of the two for ordinary visitors. 
 It seemed extravagant to wash a pair of the 
 large linen sheets for a single guest who came 
 but for a couple of nights. Still, there it was, 
 and Henry was right—Lolly ought to come to 
 them. London would be a pleasant change for 
 her. She would meet nice people, and in Lon- 
 don she would have a better chance of marry- 
 ing. Lolly was twenty-eight. She would 
 have to make haste if she were going to find a 
 
 2 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 husband before she was thirty. Poor Lolly! 
 black was not becoming to her. She looked 
 sallow, and her pale grey eyes were paler and 
 more surprising than ever underneath that very 
 unbecoming black mushroom hat. Mourning 
 was never satisfactory if one a it in a 
 country town. 
 
 While these thoughts passed chive Caro- 
 line’s mind, Laura was not thinking at all. 
 She had picked a red geranium flower, and was 
 staining her left wrist with the juice of its 
 crushed petals. So, when she was younger, she 
 had stained her pale cheeks, and had bent over 
 the greenhouse tank to see what she looked like. 
 But the greenhouse tank showed only a dark 
 shadowy Laura, very dark and smooth like the 
 lady in the old holy painting that hung in the 
 dining-room and was called the Leonardo. 
 
 “The girls will be delighted,” said Caroline. 
 Laura roused herself. It was all settled, then, 
 and she was going to live in London with 
 Henry, and Caroline his wife, and Fancy and 
 Marion his daughters. She would become an 
 inmate of the tall house in Apsley Terrace 
 where hitherto she had only been a country 
 sister-in-law on a visit. She would recognise a 
 special something in the physiognomy of that 
 
 3 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 house-front which would enable her to stop cer- 
 tainly before it without glancing at the number 
 or the door-knocker. Within it, she would 
 know unhesitatingly which of the polished 
 brown doors was which, and become quite in- 
 different to the position of the cistern, which 
 had baffled her so one night when she lay awake 
 trying to assemble the house inside the box of 
 its outer walls. She would take the air in Hyde 
 Park and watch the children on their ponies and 
 the fashionable trim ladies in Rotten Row, and 
 go to the theatre in a cab. 
 
 London life was very full and exciting. 
 ‘There were the shops, processions of the Royal 
 Family and of the unemployed, the gold tunnel 
 at Whiteley’s, and the brilliance of the streets by 
 night. She thought of the street lamps, so im- 
 partial, so imperturbable in their stately dzminu- 
 endos, and felt herself abashed before their 
 scrutiny. Each in turn would hand her on, 
 her and her shadow, as she walked the un- 
 fathomed streets and squares—but they would 
 be familiar then—complying with the sealed 
 orders of the future; and presently she would 
 be taking them for granted, as the Londoners 
 do. But in London there would be no green- 
 house with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, 
 
 4 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES . 
 
 and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with 
 bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceil- 
 ing, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and 
 bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred 
 string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray. She 
 must leave all this behind, or only enjoy it as a 
 visitor, unless James and Sibyl happened to feel, 
 as Henry and Caroline did, that of course she 
 must live with them. 
 
 Sibyl said: “Dearest Lolly!’ So Henry and 
 Caroline are to have you. . . . We shall miss 
 you more than I can say, but of course you will 
 prefer London. Dear old London with its pic- 
 turesque fogs and its interesting people, and all. 
 I quite envy you. But you mustn’t quite for- 
 sake Lady Place. You must come and pay us 
 long visits, so that Tito doesn’t forget his aunt.” 
 
 “Will you miss me, Tito?” said Laura, and 
 ‘stooped down to lay her face against his prickly 
 bib and his smooth, warm head. ‘Tito fastened 
 his hands round her finger. 
 
 “Y’m sure hell miss your ring, Lolly,” said 
 Sibyl. ‘“‘You’ll have to cut the rest of your 
 teeth on the poor old coral when Auntie Lolly 
 goes, won’t you, my angel?” 
 
 “Tl give him the ring if you think he’ll 
 really miss it, Sibyl.” 
 
 5 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Sibyl’s eyes glowed; but she said: 
 
 “Oh no, Lolly, I couldn’t think of taking 
 it. Why, it’s a family ring.” 
 
 When Fancy Willowes had grown up, and 
 married, and lost her husband in the war, and 
 driven a lorry for the Government, and married 
 again from patriotic motives, she said to Owen 
 Wolf-Saunders, her second husband: 
 
 “How unenterprising women were in the old 
 days! Look at Aunt Lolly. Grandfather 
 left her five hundred a year, and she was nearly 
 thirty when he died, and yet she could find 
 nothing better to do than to settle down with 
 Mum and Dad, and stay there ever since.” _ 
 
 “The position of single women was very dif- 
 ferent twenty years ago,” answered Mr. Wolf- 
 Saunders. “Feme sole, you know, and feme 
 couverte, and all that sort of rot.” 
 
 Even in 1902 there were some forward 
 spirits who wondered why that Miss Willowes, 
 who was quite well off, and not likely to marry, 
 did not make a home for herself and take up 
 something artistic or emancipated. Such pos- 
 sibilities did not occur to any of Laura’s rela- 
 tions. Her father being dead, they took it for 
 granted that she should be absorbed into the 
 household of one brother or the other. And 
 
 6 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Laura, feeling rather as if she were a piece of 
 property forgotten in the will, was ready to be 
 disposed of. as they should think best. 
 
 The point of view was old-fashioned, but 
 the Willoweses were a conservative family and 
 kept to old-fashioned ways. Preference, not 
 prejudice, made them faithful to their past. 
 They slept in beds and sat upon chairs whose 
 comfort insensibly persuaded them into respect 
 for the good sense of their forbears. Finding 
 that well-chosen wood and well-chosen wine 
 improved with keeping, they believed that the 
 same law applied to well-chosen ways. Moder- 
 ation, civil speaking, leisure of the mind and a 
 handsome simplicity were canons of behaviour 
 imposed upon them by the example of their an- 
 cestors. 
 
 Observing those canons, no member of the 
 Willowes family had risen to much eminence. 
 Perhaps great-great-aunt Salome had made the 
 nearest approach to fame. It was a decent 
 family boast that great-great-aunt Salome’s 
 puff-paste had been commended by King 
 George mi. And great-great-aunt Salome’s 
 prayer-book, with the services for King Charles 
 the Martyr and the Restoration of the Royal 
 Family and the welfare of the House of Han- 
 
 7 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 over—a nice example of impartial piety—was 
 always used by the wife of the head of the 
 family. Salome, though married to a Canon 
 of Salisbury, had taken off her embroidered 
 kid gloves, turned up her sleeves, and gone into 
 the kitchen to mix the paste for His Majesty’s 
 eating, her Venice-point lappets dangling above 
 the floury bowl. She was a loyal subject, a de- 
 vout churchwoman, and a good housewife, and 
 the Willoweses were properly proud of her. 
 Titus, her father, had made a voyage to the 
 Indies, and had brought back with him a green 
 parrokeet, the first of its kind to be seen in 
 Dorset. ‘The parrokeet was named Ratafee, 
 and lived for fifteen years. When he died he 
 was stuffed; and perched as in life upon his 
 ring, he swung from the cornice of the china- 
 cupboard surveying four generations of the Wil- 
 lowes family with his glass eyes. Early in the 
 nineteenth century one eye fell out and was 
 lost. The eye which replaced it was larger, 
 but inferior both in lustre and expressiveness. 
 This gave Ratafee a rather leering look, but it 
 did not compromise the esteem in which he was 
 held. In a humble way the bird had made 
 county history, and the family acknowledged 
 it, and gave him a niche in their own. 
 
 8 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Beside the china-cupboard and beneath Rata- 
 fee stood Emma’s harp, a green harp orna- 
 mented with gilt scrolls and acanthus leaves in 
 the David manner. When Laura was little she 
 would sometimes steal into the empty drawing- 
 room and pluck the strings which remained un- 
 broken. ‘They answered with a melancholy and 
 distracted voice, and Laura would pleasantly 
 frighten herself with the thought of Emma’s 
 ghost coming back to make music with cold 
 fingers, stealing into the empty drawing-room 
 as noiselessly as she had done. But Emma’s 
 was a gentle ghost. imma had died of a de- 
 cline, and when she lay dead with a bunch of 
 snowdrops under her folded palms a lock of 
 her hair was cut off to be embroidered into a 
 picture of a willow tree exhaling its branches 
 above a padded white satin tomb. “That,” 
 said Laura’s mother, “is an heirloom of your 
 great-aunt Emma who died.”” And Laura was 
 sorry for the poor young lady who alone, it 
 seemed to her, of all her relations had had the 
 ‘misfortune to die. | 
 
 Henry, born in 1818, grandfather to Laura 
 and nephew to Emma, became head of the house 
 of Willowes when he was but twenty-four, 
 his father and unmarried elder brother dying 
 
 9 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 of smallpox within a fortnight of each other. 
 As a young man Henry had shown a roving 
 and untraditional temperament, so it was fortu- 
 nate that he had the licence of a cadet to go his 
 own way. He had taken advantage of this 
 
 freedom to marry a Welsh lady, and to settle — 
 near Yeovil, where his father bought him a 
 partnership in a brewery. It was natural to 
 expect that upon becoming the head of the 
 family Henry would abandon, if not the Welsh 
 wife and the brewery, at least Somerset, and 
 return to his native people. But this he would 
 not do. He had become attached to the neigh- 
 bourhood where he had spent the first years of 
 his married life; the ill-considered jest of his 
 uncle the Admiral, that Henry was courting a 
 Welsh-woman with a tall hat hike Mother Ship- 
 ton’s who would carry her shoes to church, had 
 secretly estranged him from his relations; and— 
 most weighty reason of all—Lady Place, a 
 small solid mansion, which he had leng coveted 
 —saying to himself that if ever he were rich 
 enough he would make his wife the mistress of 
 it—just then came into the market. ‘The 
 Willowes obstinacy, which had for so long kept 
 unchanged the home of Dorset, was now to 
 transfer that home across the county border. 
 
 Io 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 The old house was sold, and the furniture and 
 family belongings were installed at Lady Place. 
 Several strings of Emma’s harp were broken, — 
 some feathers were jolted out of Ratafee’s tail, 
 and Mrs. Willowes, whose upbringing had been 
 Evangelical, was distressed for several Sundays 
 by the goings-on that she found in Salome’s 
 prayer-book. But in the main the Willowes 
 tradition stood the move very well. ‘The tables 
 and chairs and cabinets stood in the same rela- 
 tion to each other as before; the pictures hung 
 in the same order though on new walls; and 
 the Dorset hills were still to be seen from the 
 windows, though now from windows facing 
 south instead of from windows facing north. 
 Even the brewery, untraditional as it was, soon 
 weathered and became indistinguishably part of 
 the Willowes way of life. 
 
 \ Henry Willowes had three sons and four 
 daughters. Everard, the eldest son, married 
 his second cousin, Miss Frances D’Urfey. She 
 brought some more Willowes property to the 
 Somerset house: a set of garnets; a buff and 
 gold tea-service bequeathed her by the Admiral, 
 an amateur of china, who had dowered all his 
 nieces and great-nieces with Worcester, Minton, 
 
 II 
 { 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 and Oriental; and two oil-paintings by Italian 
 masters which the younger ‘Titus, Emma’s 
 brother, had bought in Rome whilst travelling 
 for his health. She bore Everard three chil- 
 dren: Henry, born in 1867; James, born in 
 1869; and Laura, born in 1874. 
 
 On Henry’s birth Everard laid down twelve 
 dozen of port against his coming of age. 
 Everard was proud of the brewery, and de- 
 clared that beer was the befitting drink for all 
 classes of Englishmen, to be preferred over 
 foreign wines. But he did not extend this ban 
 to port and sherry; it was clarets he partic- 
 ularly despised. 
 
 Another twelve dozen of port was laid down 
 for James, and there it seemed likely the matter 
 would end. 
 
 Everard was a lover of womankind; he 
 greatly desired a daughter, and when he got one 
 she was all the dearer for coming when he had 
 almost given up hope of her. His delight upon 
 this occasion, however, could not be so com- 
 pactly expressed. He could not lay down port 
 for Laura. At last he hit upon the solution of 
 his difficulty. Going up to London upon the 
 mysterious and inadequate pretext of growing 
 bald, he returned with a little string of pearls, 
 
 I2 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 small and evenly matched, which exactly fitted 
 the baby’s neck. Year by year, he explained, 
 the necklace could be extended until it encircled 
 the neck of a grown-up young woman at her 
 first ball. The ball, he went on to say, must . 
 take place in winter, for he wished to see Laura 
 trimmed with ermine. “My dear,” said Mrs. 
 Willowes, “‘the poor girl will look like a Beef- 
 eater.” But Everard was not to be put off. A 
 stuffed ermine which he had known as a boy 
 was still his ideal of the enchanted princess, so 
 pure and sleek was it, and so artfully poised the 
 small neat head on the long throat. ‘‘Weasel!” 
 exclaimed his wife. ‘“‘Everard, how dare you 
 love a minx?” 
 
 Laura escaped the usual lot of the new-born, 
 for she was not at all red. ‘To Everard she 
 seemed his very ermine come to true life. He 
 was in love with her femininity from the 
 moment he set eyes on her. “Oh, the fine 
 little lady!” he cried out when she was first 
 shown to him, wrapped in shawls, and whim- 
 pering at the keen sunlight of a frosty December 
 morning. ‘Three days after that it thawed, and 
 Mr. Willowes rode to hounds. But he came 
 back after the first kill. ‘‘ ’Twas a vixen,” he 
 said. “Such a pretty young vixen. It put me 
 
 13 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 in mind of my own, and I thought Id ride 
 back to see how she was behaving. Here’s 
 the brush.” : 
 
 Laura grew up almost as an only child. By 
 the time she was past her babyhood her brothers 
 had gone to school. When they came back 
 for their holidays, Mrs. Willowes would say: 
 “Now, play nicely with Laura. She has fed 
 your rabbits every day while you have been at 
 school. But don’t let her fall into the pond.” 
 
 Henry and James did their best to observe 
 their mother’s bidding. When Laura went too 
 near the edge of the pond one or the other would 
 generally remember to call her back again; and 
 before they returned to the house, Henry, as a 
 measure of precaution, would pull a wisp of 
 grass and wipe off any tell-tale green slime that 
 happened to be on her slippers. But nice play 
 with a sister so much younger than themselves 
 was scarcely possible. “They performed the 
 brotherly office of teaching her to throw and 
 to catch; and when they played at Knights or 
 Red Indians, Laura was dutifully cast for some 
 passive female part. ‘This satisfied the claims 
 of honour; if at some later stage it was dis- 
 covered that the captive princess or the faithful 
 squaw had slipped away unnoticed to the com- 
 
 14 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 pany of Brewer in the coachhouse or Oliver 
 Cromwell the toad, who lived under the low 
 russet roof of violet leaves near the disused 
 melon pit, it did not much affect the course of 
 the drama. Once, indeed, when Laura as a 
 captive princess had been tied to a tree, her 
 brothers were so much carried away by a series 
 of single combats for her favour that they for- 
 got to come and rescue her before they swore 
 friendship and went off to the Holy Land. Mr. 
 Willowes, coming home from the brewery 
 through a sunset haze of midges, chanced to 
 stroll into the orchard to see if the rabbits had 
 barked any more of his saplings. ‘There he 
 found Laura, sitting contentedly in hayband 
 fetters, and singing herself a story about a snake 
 that had no mackintosh. Mr. Willowes was 
 extremely vexed when he understood from 
 Laura’s nonchalant account what had happened. 
 He took off her slippers and chafed her feet. 
 Then he carried her indoors to his study, giving 
 orders that a tumbler of hot sweet lemonade 
 should be prepared for her immediately. She 
 drank it sitting on his knee while he told her 
 about the new ferret. When Henry and James 
 were heard approaching with war-whoops, Mr. 
 Willowes put her into his leather arm-chair 
 
 15 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 and went out to meet them. ‘Their war- 
 whoops quavered and ceased as they caught 
 sight of their father’s stern face. Dusk seemed 
 to fall on them with condemnation as he re- 
 minded them that it was past their supper-time, 
 and pointed out that, had he not happened upon 
 her, Laura would still have been sitting bound 
 to the Bon Chrétien pear-tree. 
 
 This befell upon one of the days when Mrs. 
 Willowes was lying down with a headache. 
 “Something always goes wrong when I have 
 one of my days,” the poor lady would complain. 
 It was also upon one of Mrs. Willowes’s days 
 that Everard fed Laura with the preserved 
 cherries out of the drawing-room cake. Laura 
 soon became very sick, and the stable-boy was 
 sent off post-haste upon Everard’s mare to sum- 
 mon the doctor. 
 
 Mrs. Willowes made a poor recovery after 
 Laura’s birth; as time went on, she became more 
 and more invalidish, though always pleasantly 
 so. She was seldom well enough to entertain, 
 so Laura grew up in a quiet household. Ladies 
 in mantles of silk or of sealskin, according to 
 the season of the year, would come to call, and 
 sitting by the sofa would say: ‘Laura is grow- 
 ing a big girl now. I suppose before long you 
 
 16 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 will be sending her to a school.” Mrs. Wil- 
 lowes heard them with half-shut eyes. Hold- 
 ing her head deprecatingly upon one side, she 
 returned evasive answers. When by quite shut- 
 ting her eyes she had persuaded them to go, she 
 would call Laura and say: ‘Darling, aren’t 
 your skirts getting a little short?” 
 
 ‘Then Nannie would let out another tuck in 
 Laura’s ginghams and merinos, and some months 
 would pass before the ladies returned to the 
 attack. ‘They all liked Mrs. Willowes, but 
 they were agreed amongst themselves that she 
 needed bracing up to a sense of her responsi- 
 bilities, especially her responsibilities about 
 Laura. It really was not mght that Laura 
 should be left so much to herself. Poor dear 
 Miss Taylor was an excellent creature. Had 
 she not inquired about peninsulas in all 
 the neighbouring school-rooms of consequence? 
 But Miss Taylor for three hours daily and 
 Mme. Brevet’s dancing classes in winter did not, 
 could not, supply all Laura’s needs. She should 
 have the companionship of girls of her own age, 
 or she might grow up eccentric. Another little 
 hint to Mrs. Willowes would surely open the 
 poor lady’s eyes. But though Mrs. Willowes 
 received their good counsel with a flattering air 
 
 i? 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 of being just about to become impressed by it, 
 and filled up their tea-cups with a great deal of 
 delicious cream, the silk and sealskin ladies 
 hinted in vain, for Laura was still at home when 
 her mother died. 
 
 During the last few years of her life Mrs. 
 Willowes grew continually more skilled in 
 evading responsibilities, and her death seemed 
 but the final perfected expression of this skill. 
 It was as if she had said, yawning a delicate 
 cat’s yawn, “I think I will go to my grave 
 now, and had left the room, her white shawl 
 trailing behind her. 
 
 Laura mourned for her mother in skirts that 
 almost reached the ground, for Miss Boddle, 
 the family dressmaker, had nice sensibilities and 
 did not think that legs could look sorrowful. 
 Indeed, Laura’s legs were very slim and frisky, 
 they liked climbing trees and jumping over hay- 
 cocks, they had no wish to retire from the 
 world and belong to a young lady. But when 
 she had put on the new clothes that smelt so 
 queerly, and looking in the mirror saw herself 
 sad and grown-up, Laura accepted the inevit- 
 able. Sooner or later she must be subdued into 
 young-ladyhood; and it seemed befitting that 
 the change should come gravely, rather than 
 
 18 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 with the conventional polite uproar and fuss of 
 “coming-out”—which odd term meant, as far 
 as she could see, and when once the champagne 
 bottles were emptied and the flimsy ball-dress 
 lifted off the thin shoulders, going-in. 
 
 As things were, she had a recompense for 
 the loss of her liberty. For Everard needed 
 comfort, he needed a woman to comfort him, 
 and abetted by Miss Boddle’s insinuations Laura 
 was soon able to persuade him that her com- 
 fortings were of the legitimate womanly kind. 
 It was easy, much easier than she had sup- 
 posed, to be grown-up; to be clear-headed and 
 watchful, to move sedately and think before 
 she spoke. Already her hands .looked much 
 whiter on the black lap. She could not take 
 her mother’s place—that was as impossible as 
 to have her mother’s touch on the piano, for 
 Mrs. Willowes had learnt from a former pupil 
 of Field, she had the jeu perlé; but she could 
 take a place of her own. So Laura behaved 
 very well—said the Willowes connection, agree- 
 ing and approving amongst themselves—and 
 went about her business, and only cried when 
 alone in the potting-shed, where a pair of old 
 gardening gloves repeated to her the shape of 
 her mother’s hands. 
 
 19 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Her behaviour was the more important in 
 that neither of her brothers was at home when 
 Mrs. Willowes died. Henry, now a member of 
 the Inner Temple, had just proposed marriage 
 toa Miss Caroline Fawcett. When he returned 
 to London after the funeral it was impossible 
 not to feel that he was travelling out of the 
 shadow that rested upon Lady Place to bask in 
 his private glory of a suitable engagement. 
 
 He left his father and sister to find consola- 
 tion in consoling each other. For though 
 James was with them, and though his sorrow 
 was without qualification, they were not likely 
 to get much help from James. He had been in 
 Germany studying chemistry, and when they 
 sent off the telegram Everard and Laura 
 reckoned up how long he would take to reach 
 Lady Place, and planned how they could most 
 comfortingly receive him, for they had already 
 begun to weave a thicker clothing of family 
 kindness against the chill of bereavement. On 
 hearing the crunch of the wagonette in the drive, 
 and the swishing of the wet rhododendrons, they 
 glanced at each other reassuringly, taking heart 
 at the thought of the bright fire in his bedroom, 
 the carefully chosen supper that awaited him. 
 But when he stood before them and they looked 
 
 20 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 at his red twitching face, they were abashed 
 before the austerity of a grief so differently 
 sustained from their own. Nothing they had 
 to offer could remedy that heart-ache. ‘They 
 left him to himself, and sought refuge in each 
 other’s society, as much from his sorrow as 
 theirs, and in his company they sat quietly, like 
 two good children in the presence of a more 
 grown-up grief than they could understand. 
 James might have accepted their self-efface- 
 ment with silent gratitude; or he might not 
 have noticed it at all—it was impossible to tell. 
 Soon after his return he did a thing so unprece- 
 dented in the annals of the family that it could 
 only be explained by the extreme exaltation of 
 mind which possessed him: for without con- 
 sulting any one, he altered the furniture, trans- 
 ferring a mirror and an almond-green brocade 
 settee from his mother’s room to hisown. ‘This 
 accomplished, he came slowly downstairs and 
 went out into the stable-yard where Laura and 
 his father were looking at a litter of puppies. 
 He told them what he had done, speaking drily, 
 as of some everyday occurrence, and when they, 
 a little timidly, tried to answer as if they too 
 thought it a very natural and convenient ar- 
 rangement, he added that he did not intend to 
 21 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 go back to Germany, but would stay henceforth 
 at Lady Place and help his father with the 
 brewery. 
 
 Everard was much pleased at this. His faith 
 in the merits of brewing had been rudely jolted 
 by the refusal of his eldest son to have anything 
 to do with it. Even before Henry left school 
 his ambition was set on the law. Hearing him 
 speak in the School Debating Society, one of the 
 masters told him that he had a legal mind. 
 This compliment left him with no doubts as to 
 what career he wished to follow, and before 
 long the legal mind was brought to bear upon 
 his parents. Everard was hurt, and Mrs. 
 Willowes was slightly contemptuous, for she 
 had the old-fashioned prejudice against the 
 learned professions, and thought her son did ill 
 in not choosing to live by his industry rather 
 than by his wits. But Henry had as much of 
 the Willowes determination as either his father 
 or his mother, and his stock of it was twenty- 
 five years younger and livelier than theirs. 
 “Times are changed,” said Everard. “A coun- 
 try business doesn’t look the same to a young 
 man as it did in my day.” 
 
 So though a partnership in the brewery seemed 
 the natural destiny for James, Everard was 
 
 22 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 much flattered by his decision, and hastened to 
 put into practice the scientific improvements 
 which his son suggested. “Though by nature 
 mistrustful of innovations he hoped that James 
 might be innocently distracted from his grief 
 by these interests, and gave him a new hopper 
 in the same paternal spirit as formerly he had 
 given him a rook-rifle. James was quite satis- 
 fied with the working of the hopper. But it 
 was not possible to discover if it had assuaged 
 his grief, because he concealed his feelings too 
 closely, becoming, by a hyperbole of reticence, 
 reserved even about his reserve, so that to all 
 appearances he was no more than a red-faced 
 young man with a moderate flow of conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 Everard and Laura never reached that stage 
 of familiarity with James which allows mem- 
 bers of the same family to accept each other on 
 surface values. ‘Their love for him was tinged 
 with awe, the awe that love learns in the mo- 
 ment of finding itself unavailing. But they 
 were glad to have him with them, especially 
 Everard, who was growing old enough to like 
 the prospect of easing his responsibilities, even 
 the inherent responsibility of being a Willowes, 
 on to younger shoulders. No one was better 
 
 23 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 fitted to take up this burden than James. 
 Everything about him, from his seat on a horse 
 to his taste in leather bindings, betokened an 
 integrity of good taste and good sense, un- 
 ostentatious, haughty, and discriminating. 
 
 The leather bindings were soon in Laura’s 
 hands. New books were just what she wanted, 
 for she had almost come to the end of the books 
 in the Lady Place library. Had they known 
 this the silk and sealskin ladies would have 
 shaken their heads over her upbringing even 
 more deploringly. But, naturally, it had’ not 
 occurred to them that a young lady of their 
 acquaintance should be under no restrictions as 
 to what she read, and Mrs. Willowes had not 
 seen any reason for making them better in- 
 formed. 
 
 So Laura read undisturbed, and without dis-. 
 turbing anybody, for the conversation at local 
 tea-parties and balls never happened to give her 
 an opportunity of mentioning anything that she 
 had learnt from Locke on the Understanding 
 or Glanvil on Witches. In fact, as she was 
 generally ignorant of the books which their 
 daughters were allowed to read, the neighbour- 
 ing mammas considered her rather ignorant. 
 However they did not like her any the worse for 
 
 24 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 this, for her ignorance, if not so sexually dis- 
 ‘pleasing as learning, was of so unsweetened a 
 quality as to be wholly without attraction. Nor 
 had they any more reason to be dissatisfied with 
 her appearance. What beauties of person she 
 had were as unsweetened as her beauties of 
 mind, and her air of fine breeding made her 
 look older than her age. 
 
 Laura was of a middle height, thin, and 
 rather pointed. Her skin was brown, inclining 
 to sallowness; it seemed browner still by con- 
 trast with her eyes, which were large, set wide 
 apart, and of that shade of grey which inclines 
 neither to blue nor green, but seems only a much 
 diluted black. Such eyes are rare in any face, 
 and rarer still in conjunction with a brown 
 colouring. In Laura’s case the effect was too 
 startling to be agreeable. Strangers thought 
 her remarkable-looking, but got no further, and 
 those more accustomed thought her plain. Only 
 Everard and James might have called her pretty, 
 had they been asked for an opinion. ‘This 
 would not have been only the partiality of one 
 Willowes for another. ‘They had seen her at 
 home, where animation brought colour into her 
 cheeks and spirit into her bearing. Abroad, 
 and in company, she was not animated. She 
 
 25 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 disliked going out, she seldom attended any but 
 those formal parties at which the attendance of 
 Miss Willowes of Lady Place was an obligatory 
 civility; and she found there little reason for 
 animation. Being without coquetry she did not 
 feel herself bound to feign a degree of enter- 
 tainment which she had not experienced, and 
 the same deficiency made her insensible to the 
 duty of every marriageable young woman to be 
 charming, whether her charm be directed to- 
 wards one special object or, in default of that, 
 universally distributed through a disinterested 
 love of humanity. This may have been due 
 to her upbringing—such was the local explana- 
 tion. But her upbringing had only furthered 
 a temperamental indifference to the need of 
 getting married—or, indeed, of doing anything 
 positive—and this indifference was reinforced by 
 the circumstances which had made her so closely 
 her father’s companion. 
 
 ‘There is nothing more endangering to a 
 young Wwoman’s normal inclination towards 
 young men than an intimacy with a man twice 
 her own age. Laura compared with her father 
 all the young men whom otherwise she might 
 have accepted without any comparisons whatever 
 as suitable objects for her intentions, and she did 
 
 26 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 not find them support the comparison at all 
 well. They were energetic, good-looking, and 
 shot pheasants- with great skill; or they were 
 witty, elegantly dressed, and had a London club; 
 but still she had no mind to quit her father’s 
 company for theirs, even if they should show 
 clear signs of desiring her to do so, and till 
 then she paid them little attention in thought 
 or deed. 
 
 When Aunt Emmy came back from India 
 and filled the spare-room with cedar-wood boxes, 
 she exclaimed briskly to Everard: “My dear, 
 it’s high time Laura married! Why isn’t she 
 _ married already?” ‘Then, seeing a slight spasm 
 of distress at this barrack-square trenchancy pass 
 over her brother’s face, she added: “A girl 
 like Laura has only to make her choice. ‘Those 
 Welsh eyes. . . . Whenever they look at me 
 I am reminded of Mamma. Everard! You 
 must let me give her a season in India.” 
 
 “You must ask Laura,” said Everard. And 
 they went out into the orchard together, where 
 Emmy picked up the windfall apples and ate 
 them with the greed of the exile. Nothing 
 more was said just then. Emmy was aware of 
 her false step. Ashamed at having exceeded a 
 Willowes: decorum of intervention she wel- 
 
 27 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 comed this chance to reinstate herself in her 
 brother’s good graces by an evocation of their 
 childhood under these same trees. 
 
 But Everard kept silence for distress. He 
 believed in good faith that his relief at seeing 
 Laura’s budding suitors nipped in their bud was 
 due to the conviction that not one of them was 
 good enough for her. As, innocently as the 
 unconcerned Laura might have done, but did 
 not, he waited for the ideal wooer. Now 
 Emmy’s tactless concern had thrown a cold 
 shadow over the remoter future after his death. 
 And for the near future had she not spoken of 
 taking Laura to India? He would be good. 
 He would not say a word to dissuade the girl 
 from what might prove to be to her advantage. 
 But at the idea of her leaving him for a country 
 so distant, for a manner of life so unfamiliar, 
 the warmth went out of his days. 
 
 Emmy unfolded her plan to Laura; that is 
 to say, unfolded the outer wrappings of it. 
 Laura listened with delight to her aunt’s tales 
 of Indian life. Compounds and mangoes, the 
 early morning rides along the Kilpawk Road, 
 the grunting song of the porters who carried 
 Mem Sahibs in litters up to the hill-stations, 
 parrots flying through the jungle, ayahs with 
 
 28 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 rubies in their nostrils, kid-gloves preserved in 
 pickle jars with screw-tops—all the solemn and 
 simple pomp of old-fashioned Madras beckoned 
 to her, beckoned like the dark arms tinkling 
 with bangles of soft gold and coloured glass. 
 But when the beckonings took the form of 
 Aunt Emmy’s circumstantial invitation Laura 
 held back, demurred this way and that, and 
 pronounced at last the refusal which had been 
 implicit in her mind from the moment the in- 
 Vitation was given. 
 
 She did not want to leave her father, nor did 
 she want to leave Lady Place. Her life per- 
 fectly contented her. She had no wish for ways 
 other than those she had grown up in. With 
 an easy diligence she played her part as mistress 
 of the house, abetted at every turn by country 
 servants of long tenure, as enamoured of the 
 comfortable amble of day by day as she was. 
 At certain seasons a fresh resinous smell would 
 haunt the house like some rustic spirit. It was 
 Mrs. Bonnet making the traditional beeswax 
 polish that alone could be trusted to give the 
 proper lustre to the elegantly bulging fronts of 
 talboys and cabinets. ‘The grey days of early 
 February were tinged with tropical odours by 
 great-great-aunt Salome’s recipe for marma- 
 
 29 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 or old Goody Andrews, who might have been 
 Nicholas’s crony by the respect she had for the 
 moon, were ready to help her out. She roved 
 the countryside for herbs and simples, and many 
 were the washes and decoctions that she made 
 from sweet-gale, water purslane, cowslips, and 
 the roots of succory, while her salads gathered 
 in fields and hedges were eaten by Everard, at 
 first in hope and trust, and afterwards with 
 flattering appetite. Encouraged by him, she — 
 even wrote a little book called “Health by the 
 Wayside” commending the use of old-fashioned 
 simples and healing herbs. It was published 
 anonymously at the local press, and fell quite 
 flat Everard felt much more slighted by this 
 than she did, and bought up the remainders 
 without telling her so. But mugwort was not 
 included in the book, for she was never al- 
 lowed to test its virtues, and she would not in- 
 clude recipes which she had not tried herself. 
 Nannie believed it to be no less effective than 
 nettles, but she did not know how to prepare it. 
 Once long ago she had made a broth by seeth-- 
 ing the leaves in boiling water, which she then 
 strained off and gave to Henry and James. But 
 it made them both sick, and Mrs. Willowes had 
 forbidden its further use. Laura felt positive 
 
 32 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 that mugwort tea would not have made her sick. 
 She begged for leave to make trial of it, but to 
 no avail; Nannie’s prohibition was as absolute 
 as that of her mistress. But Nannie had not 
 lost her faith. She explained that the right 
 mugwort for the purpose was a very special 
 kind that did not grow in Somerset, but at 
 the gates of the cobbler in her native village the 
 mugwort grew fair enough. Long after this 
 discussion had taken place, Laura found in 
 Aubrey’s Wiscellany a passage quoted from Pliny 
 which told how Artemis had, revealed the virtues 
 of mugwort to the dreaming Pericles. She 
 hastened to tell Nannie of this. Nannie was 
 gratified, but she would not admit that her 
 faith needed any buttressing. ‘Those Greeks 
 didn’t know everything!” she said, and drove 
 a needle into her red cloth emery case, which 
 was shaped like a strawberry and spotted over 
 with small yellow beads. 
 
 For nearly ten years Laura kept house for 
 Everard and James. Nothing happened to dis- 
 turb the easy serenity of their days except the 
 birth of first one daughter and then another to 
 Henry and Caroline, and this did not disturb it 
 much. Everard, so happy in a daughter, was 
 prepared to be happy in granddaughters also. 
 
 Oe 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 or old Goody Andrews, who might have been 
 Nicholas’s crony by the respect she had for the 
 moon, were ready to help her out. She roved 
 the countryside for herbs and simples, and many 
 were the washes and decoctions that she made 
 from sweet-gale, water purslane, cowslips, and 
 the roots of succory, while her salads gathered 
 in fields and hedges were eaten by Everard, at 
 first in hope and trust, and afterwards with 
 flattering appetite. Encouraged by him, she — 
 even wrote a little book called “Health by the 
 Wayside” commending the use of old-fashioned 
 simples and healing herbs. It was published 
 anonymously at the local press, and fell quite 
 flat. Everard felt much more slighted by this 
 than she did, and bought up the remainders 
 without telling her so. But mugwort was not 
 included in the book, for she was never al- 
 lowed to test its virtues, and she would not in- 
 clude recipes which she had not tried herself. 
 Nannie believed it to be no less effective than 
 nettles, but she did not know how to prepare it. 
 Once long ago she had made a broth by seeth- 
 ing the leaves in boiling water, which she then 
 strained off and gave to Henry and James. But 
 it made them both sick, and Mrs. Willowes had 
 forbidden its further use. Laura felt positive 
 
 32 
 
POLLY WILLOWES 
 
 that mugwort tea would not have made her sick. 
 She begged for leave to make trial of it, but to 
 no avail; Nannie’s prohibition was as absolute 
 as that of her mistress. But Nannie had not 
 lost her faith. She explained that the right 
 mugwort for the purpose was a very special 
 kind that did not grow in Somerset, but at 
 the gates of the cobbler in her native village the 
 mugwort grew fair enough. Long after this 
 discussion had taken place, Laura found in 
 Aubrey’s Miscellany a passage quoted from Pliny 
 which told how Artemis had, revealed the virtues 
 of mugwort to the dreaming Pericles. She 
 hastened to tell Nannie of this. Nannie was 
 gratified, but she would not admit that her 
 faith needed any buttressing. ‘“Those Greeks 
 didn’t know everything!” she said, and drove 
 a needle into her red cloth emery case, which 
 was shaped like a strawberry and spotted over 
 with small yellow beads. 
 
 For nearly ten years Laura kept house for 
 Everard and James. Nothing happened to dis- 
 turb the easy serenity of their days except the 
 birth of first one daughter and then another to 
 Henry and Caroline, and this did not disturb it 
 much. Everard, so happy in a daughter, was 
 prepared to be happy in granddaughters also. 
 
 33 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 When Henry apologised to him with dignity 
 for the accident of their sex Everard quoted to 
 him the nursery rhyme about what little boys 
 and girls were made of. Henry was relieved to 
 find his father taking so lightly a possible failure 
 in the Willowes male line, but he wished the 
 old man wouldn’t trifle so. He could not stoop 
 to give his father the lie over his unscientific 
 theory of sex. He observed gloomily that 
 daughters could be very expensive now that so 
 much fuss was being made about the education 
 of women. 
 
 Henry in his fears for the Willowes male 
 line had taken it for granted that his brother 
 would’ never marry. And certainly if to he 
 very low about a thing is a sign that one is not 
 thinking about it, James had no thought of 
 marriage. He was nearly thirty-three when he 
 announced with his usual quiet abruptness that 
 he was going to marry. ‘The lady of his choice 
 was a Miss Sibyl Mauleverer. She was the 
 daughter of a clergyman, but of a fashionable 
 London clergyman which no doubt accounted 
 for her not being in the least like any clergy- 
 man’s daughter seen by Everard and Laura 
 hitherto. Miss Mauleverer’s skirts were so long 
 
 34 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 and so lavish that they lay in folds upon the 
 ground all round her when she stood still, and 
 required to be lifted in both hands before she 
 could walk. Her hats were further off her 
 head than any hats that had yet been seen in 
 Somerset, and she had one of the up-to-date 
 smooth Aberdeen terriers. It was indeed hard 
 to believe that this distinguished creature had 
 been born and bred in a parish. But nothing 
 could have been more parochial than her deter- 
 mination to love her new relations and to be 
 loved in return. She called Everard Vaterlein, 
 she taught Laura to dance the cake-walk, she 
 taught Mrs. Bonnet to make petits canapés a 
 PImpératrice; having failed to teach Brewer 
 how to make a rock’garden, she talked of mak- 
 ing one herself; and though she would have 
 liked old oak better, she professed herself en- 
 chanted by the Willowes walnut and mahogany. 
 So assiduously did this pretty young person seek 
 to please that Laura and Everard would have 
 been churlish had they not responded to her 
 blandishments. Each, indeed, secretly won- 
 dered what James could see in any one so showy 
 and dashing as Sibyl. But they were too dis- 
 creet to admit this, even one to the other, and 
 
 35 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 contented themselves with politely wondering 
 what Sibyl could see in such a country sobersides 
 as James, | 
 
 Lady Place was a large house, and it seemed 
 proper that James should bring his wife to live 
 there. It also seemed proper that she should 
 take Laura’s place as mistress of the household. 
 The sisters-in-law disputed this point with much 
 civility, each insisting upon the other’s claim 
 like two queens curtseying in a doorway. How- 
 ever Sibyl was the visiting queen and had to 
 yield to Laura in civility, and assume the re- 
 sponsibilities of housekeeping. She jingled them 
 very lightly, and as soon as she found herself 
 to be with child she gave them over again to 
 Laura, who made a point of ordering the petits 
 canapés whenever any one came to dinner. 
 
 Whatever small doubts and regrets Everard 
 and Laura had nursed about James’s wife were 
 put away when Sibyl bore a man child. It 
 would not have been loyal to the heir of the 
 Willowes to suppose that his mother was not 
 quite as well-bred as he. Everard did not even — 
 need to remind himself of the Duchess of 
 Suffolk. Titus, sprawling his fat hands over 
 his mother’s bosom, Titus, a disembodied cooing 
 of contentment in the nursery overhead, would 
 
 26 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 have justified a far more questionable match 
 than James had made. 
 
 A year later Everard, amid solemnity, lit the 
 solitary candle of his grandson’s first birthday 
 upon the cake that Mrs. Bonnet had made, that 
 Laura had iced, that Sibyl had*wreathed with 
 flowers. The flame wavered a little in the 
 draught, and Everard, careful against omens, 
 ordered the French windows to be shut. On 
 so glowing a September afternoon it was strange 
 to see the conifers nodding their heads in the 
 wind and to hear the harsh breath*of autumn go 
 forebodingly round the house. Laura gazed at 
 the candle. She understood her father’s alarm 
 and, superstitious also, held her breath until she 
 saw the flame straighten itself and the first 
 little trickle of coloured wax flow down upon 
 the glittering tin star that held the candle. 
 That evening, after dinner, there was a show of 
 fireworks for the school children in the garden. 
 So many rockets were let off by Everard and 
 James that for a while the northern sky was 
 laced with a thicket of bright sedge scattering 
 a fiery pollen. So hot and excited did Everard 
 become in manceuvring this splendour that he 
 forgot the cold wind and took off his coat. 
 
 ‘Two days after he complained of a pain in 
 
 37 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 his side. ‘The doctor looked grave as he came 
 out of the bed-chamber, though within it Laura 
 had heard him laughing with his old friend, and 
 rallying him upon his nightcap. Everard had 
 inflammation of the lungs, he told her; he 
 would send for two nurses. ‘They came, and 
 their starched white aprons looked to her lke 
 unlettered tombstones. From the beginning her 
 soul had crouched in apprehension, and indeed 
 there was at no time much hope for the old 
 man. When he was conscious he lay very 
 peacefully, his face turned towards the window, 
 watching the swallows fly restlessly from tree to 
 tree. “It will be a hard winter,” he said to 
 Laura. “They’re gathering early to go.” And 
 then: “Do you suppose they know where 
 they’re going?” 
 
 “Y’m sure they do,” she answered, thinking ; 
 to comfort him. He regarded her shrewdly, 
 smiled, and shook his head. “Then they’re 
 wiser than we.” 
 
 When grandfather Henry, that masterful 
 man, removed across the border, he was fol- 
 lowed by a patriarchal train of manservants and 
 miaidservants, mares, geldings, and spaniels, vans 
 full of household stuff, and slow country wag- 
 gons loaded with nodding greenery. “I want 
 
 38 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to make sure of a good eating apple,” said he, 
 “since I am going to Lady Place for life.” 
 Death was another matter. The Willowes 
 burial-ground was in Dorset, nor would Henry 
 lie elsewhere. Now it was Everard’s turn. 
 ‘The dead appeared to welcome him without 
 astonishment—the former Everards and Tituses, 
 Lauras and Emmelines; they were sure that he 
 would come, they approved his decision to join 
 them. 
 
 Laura stood by the open grave, but the heap 
 of raw earth and the planks sprawling upon it 
 displeased her. Her eyes strayed to the graves 
 that were completed. Her mind told the tale 
 of them, for she knew them well. Four times 
 a year Mrs. Willowes had visited the family 
 burying place, and as a child Laura had counted. 
 it a solemn and delicious honour to accompany 
 her upon these expeditions. In summer especi- 
 ally, it was pleasant to sit on the churchyard 
 wall under the thick roof of lime trees, or to 
 finger the headstones, now hot, now cold, while 
 her mother went from grave to grave with her 
 gauntlet gloves and her gardening basket. 
 Afterwards they would eat their sandwiches in 
 a hayfield, and pay a visit to old Mrs. Dymond, 
 whose sons and grandsons in hereditary office 
 
 39 
 
~ 
 
 LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 clipped the grass and trimmed the bushes of the 
 family enclosure. As Laura grew older the 
 active part of these excursions fell upon her; 
 and often of late years when she went alone she 
 half yielded her mind to the fancy that the 
 dead mother whose grave she tended was sitting 
 a little apart in the shade, presently to rise and 
 come to meet her, having just recalled and 
 delicately elaborated some odd trait of a neigh- 
 bouring great-uncle. 
 
 ‘The bees droned in the motionless lime trees. 
 A hot ginny churchyard smell detached itself 
 in a leisurely way from the evergreens when 
 the mourners brushed by them. ‘The sun, but 
 an hour or so declined, shone with an ardent 
 and steadfast interest upon the little group. “In 
 the midst of life we are in death,” said Mr. 
 Warbury, his voice sounding rather shameless 
 taken out of church and displayed upon the 
 basking echoless air. “In the midst of death 
 we are in life,” Laura thought, would be a more 
 accurate expression of the moment. Her small 
 body encased in tremendous sunlight seemed to 
 throb with an intense vitality, impersonally re- 
 sponding to heat, scent, and colour. With blind 
 clear-sighted eyes she saw the coffin lowered 
 into the grave, and the earth shovelled in on 
 
 40 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 top of it. She was aware of movement around 
 her, of a loosening texture of onlookers, of foot- 
 steps and departures. But it did not occur te 
 her that the time was come when she too must 
 depart. She stood and watched the sexton, who 
 had set to work now in a more business-like 
 fashion. An arm was put through hers. A 
 voice said: ‘Dear Laura! we must go now,” 
 and Caroline led her away. ‘Tears ran down 
 Caroline’s face; she seemed to be weeping be- 
 cause it was time to go. 
 
 _ Laura would have turned for one more back- 
 ward look, but Caroline prevented her. Her 
 tears ran faster and she shook her head and 
 sighed. They reached the gate. It closed be- 
 hind them with a contented click, for they were 
 the last to leave. 
 
 Opposite the churchyard were the gates. of 
 the old home. ‘The drive was long, straight, 
 and formal; it had been a cart-track across 4 
 meadow when the old home was a farm. At 
 the end of the drive stood the grey stone house. 
 A purple clematis muffled the porch, and a 
 white cat lay asleep in a bed of nasturtiums. 
 The blinds were drawn down in respect to the 
 dead. Laura looked at it. Since her earliest 
 childhood it had been a familiar sight, a familiar 
 
 41 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 thought. But now she saw it with different 
 eyes: a prescience of exile came over her and, 
 forgetting Lady Place, she looked with the 
 yearning of an outcast at the dwelling so long 
 ago discarded. The house was like an old 
 blind nurse sitting in the sun and ruminating 
 past events. It seemed an act of the most 
 horrible ingratitude to leave it all and go away 
 without one word of love. But the gates were 
 shut, the time of welcome was gone by. 
 
 For a while they stood in the road, none 
 making a move, each waiting for the other’s 
 lead. A tall poplar grew on the left hand of 
 the churchyard gate. Its scant shadow scarcely 
 indented the white surface of the road. A> 
 quantity of wasps were buzzing about its trunk, 
 and presently one of the wasps stung Henry. 
 ‘This seemed to be the spur that they were all 
 waiting for; they turned and walked to the 
 corner of the road where the carriages stood 
 that were to drive them back to the station. 
 
 Every one was sorry for Laura, for they knew 
 how much she had loved her father. They 
 agreed that it was a good thing that Henry and 
 Caroline were taking her to London. ‘They 
 hoped that this change would distract her from 
 her grief. Meanwhile, there was a good deal 
 
 42 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to do, and that also was a distraction. Clothes 
 and belongings had to be sorted out, friends and 
 family pensioners visited, and letters of con-- 
 dolence answered. Beside this she had her own 
 personal accumulation of vagrant odds and ends 
 to dispose of. She had lived for twenty-eight 
 years in a house where there was no lack of 
 cupboard room, and a tradition of hoarding, 
 so the accumulation was considerable. ‘There 
 were old toys, letters, stones of strange shapes 
 or bright colours, lesson-books, water-colour 
 sketches of the dogs and the garden; a bunch 
 of dance programmes kept for the sake of their 
 little pencils, and all the little pencils tangled 
 into an inextricable knot; pieces of unfinished 
 needlework, jeweller’s boxes, scraps cut out of 
 the newspaper, and unexplainable objects that 
 could only be remembrancers of things she had 
 forgotten. ‘To go over these hoards amused the 
 surface of her mind. But with everything 
 thrown away she seemed to be denying the 
 significance of her youth. 
 
 ‘Thus busied, she was withheld all day from 
 her proper care. But at dusk she would go 
 out of the house and pace up and down the nut 
 alley at the foot of the garden. ‘The cold airs 
 that rose up from the ground spoke sadly to 
 
 43 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 her of burial, the mossy paths were hushed and 
 humble under her tread, and the smells of 
 autumn condoled with her. Brewer the gar- 
 dener, stamping out the ashes of his bonfire, 
 saw her pass to and fro, a slender figure moving 
 sedately between the unmoving boughs. He 
 alone of all the household had taken his master’s 
 death without exclamation. Death coming to 
 the old was a harmless thought to him, but 
 looking at Laura he sighed deeply, as though 
 he had planted her and now saw her dashed 
 and broken by bad weather. 
 
 Ten days after Everard’s death Henry and 
 Caroline left Lady Place, taking Laura with 
 them. She found the leave-taking less painful 
 than she had expected, and Caroline put her to 
 bed as soon as they arrived in Apsley Terrace, 
 which simplified her unhappiness by making her 
 feel like an unhappy child. 
 
 Laura had heard the others agreeing that the 
 move to London would make her feel very 
 differently. She had thought them stupid to 
 suppose that any outward change could alter 
 her mood. She now found that they had judged 
 better than she. In Somerset she had grieved 
 over her father’s death. In London her grief 
 was retracted into sudden realisations of her 
 
 44 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 loss. She had thought that sorrow would be 
 her companion for many years, and had planned 
 for its entertainment. Now it visited her like 
 sudden snow-storms, a hastening darkness across 
 the sky, a transient whiteness and rigour cast 
 upon her. She tried to recover the sentiment 
 of renunciation which she had worn like a veil. 
 It was gone, and gone with it was her sense of 
 the dignity of bereavement. 
 
 Henry and Caroline did all they could to 
 prevent her feeling unhappy. If they had been 
 overlooking some shame of hers they could not 
 have been more tactful, more modulatory. 
 
 The first winter passed by like a half-frozen 
 stream. At the turn of the year it grew ex- 
 tremely cold. Red cotton sandbags were laid 
 along the window-sashes, and Fancy and Marion 
 skated on the Round Pond with small astrakhan 
 mufis. Laura did not skate, but she walked 
 briskly along the path with Caroline, listening 
 to the rock and jar of the skates grinding upon 
 the ice and to the cries of the gulls overhead. 
 She found London much colder than the coun- 
 try, though Henry assured her that this was im- 
 possible. She developed chilblains, and this 
 annoyed her, for she had not had chilblains since 
 she was a child. Then Nannie Quantrell 
 
 45 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 would send her out in the early morning to run 
 barefoot over the rimy lawn. ‘There was a 
 small garden at Apsley Terrace, but it had been 
 gravelled over because Henry disliked the quality 
 of London grass; and in any case it was not the 
 sort of garden in which she could run barefoot. 
 
 She was also annoyed by the hardness of the 
 London water. Her hands were so thin that 
 they were always a little red; now they were 
 rough also. If they could have remained idle, 
 she would not have minded this so much. But 
 Caroline never sat with idle hands; she would 
 knit, or darn, or do useful needlework. Laura 
 could not sit opposite her and do nothing. 
 There was no useful needlework for her to do, 
 Caroline did it all, so Laura was driven to 
 embroidery. Each time that a strand of silk 
 rasped against her fingers she shuddered in- 
 wardly. 
 
 ‘Time went faster than the embroidery did. 
 She had actually a sensation that she was stitch- 
 ing herself into a piece of embroidery with a 
 good deal of background. But, as Caroline 
 said, it was not possible to feel dull when there 
 was so much to do. Indeed, it was surprising 
 how much there was to do, and for everybody 
 in the house. Even Laura, introduced as a sort 
 
 46 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 of extra wheel, soon found herself part of the 
 mechanism, and, interworking with the other 
 wheels, went round as busily as they. 
 
 When she awoke, the day was already begun. 
 She could hear iron noises from the kitchen, 
 the sound of yesterday’s ashes being probed 
 out. Then came a smell of wood smoke— 
 the kitchen fire had been laid anew and kindled 
 in the cleansed grate. ‘This was followed by 
 the automatic noise of the carpet-sweeper and, 
 breaking in upon it, the irregular knocking of 
 the staircase brush against the banisters. “The 
 maid who brought her morning tea and laid the 
 folded towel across the hot-water can had an 
 experienced look; when she drew back the cur- 
 tains she looked out upon the day with no 
 curiosity. She had seen it already. 
 
 By the time the Willowes family met at 
 breakfast all this activity had disappeared like 
 the tide from the smooth, garnished beach. For 
 the rest of the day it functioned unnoticed. 
 Bells were answered, meals were served, all that 
 appeared was completion. Yet unseen and un- 
 derground the preparation and demolition of 
 every day went on, like the inward persistent 
 workings of heart and entrails. Sometimes a 
 crash, a banging door, a voice upraised, would 
 
 47 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 rend the veil of impersonality. And some- 
 times a sound of running water at unusual hours 
 and a faint steaminess in the upper parts of the 
 house betokened that one of the servants was 
 having a bath. 
 
 After breakfast, and after Henry had been 
 seen off, Caroline descended to the kitchen and 
 Laura read the relinquished Times. ‘Then 
 came shopping, letter-writing, arranging the 
 flowers, cleaning the canary-cage, and the girls’ 
 walk. Such things as arranging flowers or 
 cleaning the canary-cage were done with a kind 
 of precautious routine which made them seem 
 alike solemn and illicit. The flowers were 
 always arranged in the ground-floor lavatory, 
 where there was a small sink; vases and wire 
 frames were kept in a cupboard, and a pair of 
 scissors was strung to a nail. ‘Then the com- 
 pleted affair was carried carefully past the coats 
 that hung in the lobby outside and set down upon 
 some established site. 
 
 Every Tuesday the books were changed at 
 the library. 
 
 After lunch there was a spell of embroidery 
 and more Times. If it was fine, Caroline paid 
 calls; if wet, she sat at home on the chance of 
 receiving them. On Saturday afternoons there 
 
 48 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 was the girls’ dancing-class. Laura accompa- 
 nied her nieces thither, carrying their slippers in 
 a bag. She sat among the other parents and 
 guardians upon a dais which shook to the 
 primary accents of the pianist, watching lancers 
 and polkas and waltzes being performed, and 
 hearing Miss Parley say: ‘Now we will re-. 
 commence.” After the dancing was over there 
 was a March of Grace, and when Fancy and 
 Marion had miscarried of their curtseys she 
 would envelop their muslin dresses and their 
 red elbows in the grey ulsters, and walk them 
 briskly home again. 
 
 ‘They were dull children, though their dull- 
 ness did not prevent them having a penetrating 
 flow of conversation. ‘Their ways and thoughts 
 were governed by a sort of zodiacal procession 
 of other little girls, and when they came down 
 to the drawing-room after tea it seemed to 
 Laura that they brought the Wardours, or the 
 Wilkinsons, or the de la Bottes with them. 
 
 Dinner was at half-past seven. It was a 
 sensible rule of Caroline’s that at dinner only 
 general topics should be discussed. The diffi- 
 culties of the day (if the day had presented 
 difficulties) were laid aside. ‘To this rule 
 Caroline attributed the excellence of Henry’s 
 
 49 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 digestion. Henry’s digestion was further safe- 
 guarded by being left to itself in the smoking- 
 room for an hour after dinner. If he was 
 busy, this hour of meditation would be followed 
 by some law-work. If not, he would join 
 them in the drawing-room, or go to his club. 
 When they were thus left by themselves Laura 
 and Caroline went off to bed early, for they 
 were pleasantly fatigued by their regular days 
 and regular meals. Later on Laura, half 
 asleep, would hear Henry’s return from his 
 club. The thud of the front door pulled to 
 after him drove through the silent house, and 
 this was followed by the noise of bolts and 
 chains. ‘Then the house, emptied of another 
 day, creaked once or twice, and fell into repose, 
 its silence and security barred up within it like 
 a kind of moral family plate. The remainder 
 of the night was left at the disposal of the 
 grandfather’s clock in the hall, equitably deal- 
 ing out minutes and quarters and hours. 
 
 On Sunday mornings Henry would wind the 
 clock. First one and then the other the quiv- 
 ering chains were wound up, till only the snouts 
 of the leaden weights were visible, drooping 
 sullenly over the abyss of time wherein they 
 were to make their descent during the seven 
 
 50 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 days following. After that the family went to 
 church, and there were wound up for the week - 
 in much the same manner. They went to 
 evening service too, but evening service was 
 less austere. The vindictive sentiments sounded 
 less vindictive; if an umbrella fell down with a 
 crash the ensuing silence was less affronted; the 
 sermon was shorter, or seemed so, and swung 
 more robustly into “And now to God the Fa- 
 ther.” 
 
 After evening service came cold supper. 
 Fancy and Marion sat up for this, and it was 
 rather a cheerful meal, with extra trivialities 
 such as sardines and celery. ‘The leaden 
 weights had already started upon their down- 
 ward course. | 
 
 Caroline was a religious woman. Resolute, 
 orderly and unromantic, she would have made 
 an admirable Mother Superior. In her house- 
 keeping and her scrupulous account-books she 
 expressed an almost mystical sense of the valid- 
 ity of small things. But like most true mys- 
 tics, she was unsympathetic and difficult of ap- 
 proach. Once only did she speak her spiritual 
 mind to Laura. Laura was nursing her when 
 she had influenza; Caroline wished to put on a 
 clean nightdress, and Laura, opening the third 
 
 5I 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 drawer of the large mahogany wardrobe, had 
 commented upon the beautiful orderliness with 
 which Caroline’s body linen was arranged 
 therein. “We have our example,” said Caro- 
 line. “The graveclothes were folded in the 
 tomb.” 
 
 Looking into the large shadowy. drawer, 
 where nightgowns and chemises lay folded 
 exactly upon each other in a purity that dis- 
 dained even lavender, Laura shuddered a little 
 at this revelation of her sister-in-law’s private 
 thoughts. She made no answer, and never 
 again did Caroline open her mind to her upon 
 such matters. 
 
 Laura never forgot. this. Caroline seemed 
 affectionately disposed towards her; she was 
 full of practical good sense, her advice was 
 excellent, and pleasantly bestowed. Laura saw 
 her a good wife, a fond and discreet mother, a 
 kind mistress, a most conscientious sister-in-law. 
 She was also rather gluttonous. But for none 
 of these qualities could Laura feel at ease with 
 her. Compared to Caroline she knew herself 
 to be unpractical, unmethodical, lacking in ini- 
 tiative. ‘The tasks that Caroline delegated to 
 her she performed eagerly and carefully, but 
 she performed them with the hampering con- 
 
 52 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 sciousness that Caroline could do them better 
 than she, and in less time. Even in so simple 
 a matter as holding a skein of wool for Caroline 
 to wind off into a ball, Caroline’s large white 
 fingers worked so swiftly that it was she who 
 twitched the next length off Laura’s thumb 
 before Laura, watching the diminishing thread, 
 remembered to dip her hand. But all this— 
 for Laura was humble and Caroline kind— 
 could have been overcome. It was in the things 
 that never appeared that Laura felt her inade- 
 quacy. 
 
 Laura was not in any way religious. She 
 was not even religious enough to speculate to- 
 wards irreligion. She went with Caroline to 
 early service whenever Caroline’s inquiries sug- 
 gested it, and to morning service and evening 
 service every Sunday; she knelt beside her and 
 heard her pray in a small, stilled version of the 
 voice which she knew so well in its clear every- 
 day ordinances. Religion was great-great-aunt 
 Salome’s prayer-book which Caroline held in 
 her gloved hands. Religion was a strand in 
 the Willowes life, and the prayer-book was the 
 outward sign of it. But it was also the outward 
 sign of the puff pastry which had been praised 
 by. King George mi. Religion was something 
 
 53 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to be preserved: it was part of the Willowes 
 life and so was the prayer-book, preserved from 
 generation to generation. 
 
 Laura was bored by the church which they 
 attended. She would have liked, now that she 
 was come to London, to see the world, to ad- 
 venture in churches. She was darkly, adven- 
 turously drawn to see what services were like 
 amongst Roman Catholics, amongst Huguenots, 
 amongst Unitarians and Swedenborgians, feel- 
 ing about this rather as she felt about the East 
 End. She expressed her wish to Caroline, and 
 Caroline, rather unexpectedly, had been in- 
 clined to further it. But Henry banned the 
 project. It would not do for Laura to go else- 
 where than to the family place of worship, he 
 said. For Henry, the family place of worship 
 was the pew upon whose ledge rested great- 
 great-aunt Salome’s prayer-book. He felt this 
 less explicitly than the straying Laura did, for 
 he was a man and had less time to think of such 
 things. But he felt it strongly. 
 
 Laura believed that she would like Caroline 
 if she could only understand her. She had no 
 difficulty in understanding Henry, but for no 
 amount of understanding could she much like 
 him. After some years in his house she came 
 
 54 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to the conclusion that Caroline had been very 
 bad for his character. Caroline was a good 
 woman and a good wife. She was slightly 
 self-righteous, and fairly rightly so, but she 
 yielded to Henry’s judgment in every dispute, 
 she bowed her good sense to his will and blink- 
 ered her wider views in obedience to his preju- 
 dices. Henry had a high opinion of her merits, 
 but thinking her to be so admirable and finding 
 her to be so acquiescent had encouraged him to 
 have an even higher opinion of his own. 
 However good a wife Caroline might choose to 
 be she could not quite make Henry a bad hus- 
 band or a bad man-—he was too much of a 
 Willowes for that: but she fed his vanity, and 
 ministered to his imperiousness. 
 
 Laura also thought that the law had done a 
 great deal to spoil Henry. It had changed his 
 natural sturdy stupidity into a browbeating in- 
 difference to other people’s point of view. He 
 seemed to consider himself briefed by his Cre- 
 ator to turn into ridicule the opinions of those 
 who disagreed with him, and to attribute dis- 
 honesty, idiocy, or a base motive to every one 
 who supported a better case than he. ‘This did 
 not often appear in his private life, Henry was 
 kindly disposed to those who did not thwart 
 
 55 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 him by word or deed. His household had been 
 well schooled by Caroline in yielding grace- 
 fully, and she was careful not to invite guests 
 who were not of her husband’s way of thinking. 
 
 Most of their acquaintance were people con- 
 nected with the law. Laura grew familiar 
 with the legal manner, but she did not grow 
 fond of it. She felt that these clean-shaven 
 men with bristling eyebrows were suavely con- 
 cealing their doubts of her intelligence and her 
 probity. Their jaws were like so many mouse- 
 traps, baited with commonplaces. ‘They made 
 her feel shy and behave stiffly. 
 
 This was unfortunate, as Henry and Caro- 
 line had hoped that some one of them would 
 fall sufficiently in love with Laura to marry 
 her. Mr. Fortescue, Mr. Parker, Mr. Jermyn, 
 Mr. Danby, Mr. Thrush, were in turn selected 
 as suitable and likely undertakers. Every de- 
 cent effort was made by Henry and Caroline, 
 and a certain number of efforts were made by 
 the chosen. But Laura would make no efforts 
 at all. Henry and Caroline had lost heart 
 when they invited Mr. Arbuthnot to tea on 
 Sunday. ‘They invited him for pity’s sake, and 
 but to tea at that, for he was very shy and 
 stammered. To their surprise they saw Laura 
 
 56 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 taking special pains to be nice to him. Equally 
 to their surprise they saw Mr. Arbuthnot laying 
 aside his special pains to observe a legal manner 
 and stammering away quite enthusiastically 
 about climbing Welsh mountains and gathering 
 parsley fern. ‘They scarcely dared to hope, for 
 they felt the time for hope was gone by. 
 However, they invited him to dinner, and did 
 their best to be on friendly terms with him. 
 
 Mr. Arbuthnot received their advances with- 
 out surprise, for he had a very good opinion of 
 himself. He felt that being thirty-five he 
 owed himself a wife, and he also felt that 
 Laura would do very nicely. His aunt, Lady 
 Ross-Price, always tried to get servants from 
 the Willowes establishment, for Mrs. Willowes 
 trained them so well. Mr. Arbuthnot sup- 
 posed that Mrs. Willowes would be equally 
 good at training wives. He began to think of 
 Laura quite tenderly, and Caroline began to 
 read the Stores’ catalogue quite seriously. ‘This 
 was the moment when Laura, who had been be- 
 having nicely for years, chose to indulge her 
 fantasy, and to wreck in five minutes the good 
 intentions of as many months. 
 
 She had come more and more to look on Mr. 
 Arbuthnot as an indulgence. His stammer had 
 
 57 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 endeared him to her; it seemed, after so much 
 legal manner, quite sympathetic. ‘Though 
 nothing would have induced her to marry him, 
 she was very ready to talk to him, and even to 
 talk naturally of what came uppermost in her 
 thoughts. Laura’s thoughts ranged over a wide 
 field, even now. Sometimes she said rather 
 amusing things, and displayed unexpected stores 
 (General Stores) of knowledge. But her re- 
 marks were as a rule so disconnected from the 
 conversation that no one paid much attention to 
 them. Mr. Arbuthnot certainly was not pre- 
 pared for her response to his statement that 
 February was a dangerous month. “It is,” an- 
 swered Laura with almost violent agreement. 
 “If you are a were-wolf, and very likely you 
 may be, for lots of people are without knowing, 
 February, of all months, is the month when you 
 are most likely to go out on a dark windy night 
 and worry sheep.” 
 
 Henry and Caroline glanced at each other 
 in horror. Mr. Arbuthnot said: ‘How very 
 interesting! But I really don’t think I am > 
 likely to do such a thing.” Laura made no 
 answer. She did not think so either. But she 
 was amusing herself with a surprisingly vivid 
 and terrible picture of Mr. Arbuthnot cloaked 
 
 58 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 in a shaggy hide and going with heavy devour- 
 ing swiftness upon all-fours with a lamb 
 dangling from his mouth. 
 
 This settled it. Henry and Caroline made 
 no more attempts to marry off Laura. ‘Trying 
 to do so had been a nuisance and an expense, 
 and Laura had never shown the smallest appre- 
 ciation of their trouble. Before long they 
 would have the girls to think of. Fancy was 
 sixteen, and Marion nearly as tall as Fancy. 
 In two years they would have to begin again. 
 They were glad of a respite, and made the most 
 of it. Laura also was glad of a respite. She 
 bought second-hand copies of Herodotus and 
 Johnson’s Dictionary to read in the evenings. 
 Caroline, still sewing on buttons, would look at 
 her sister-in-law’s composed profile. Laura’s 
 hair was black as ever, but it was not so thick. 
 She had grown paler from living in London. 
 Her forehead had not a wrinkle, but two down- 
 ward lines prolonged the drooping corners of 
 her mouth. Her face was beginning to stiffen. 
 It had lost its power of expressiveness, and was 
 more and more dominated by the hook nose and 
 the sharp chin. When Laura was ten years 
 older she would be nut-crackerish. 
 
 Caroline resigned herself to spending the 
 
 Bie, 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 rest of her evenings with Laura beside her. 
 The perpetual company of a sister-in-law was 
 rather more than she had bargained for. Still, 
 there she was, and Henry was right—they had 
 been the proper people to make a home for 
 Laura when her father died, and she was 
 too old now to begin living by herself. It 
 was not as if she had had any experience of 
 life; she .had passed from one guardianship 
 to another: it was impossible to imagine Laura 
 fending for herself. A kind of pity for the 
 unused virgin beside her spread through Caro- 
 line’s thoughts. She did not attach an in- 
 ordinate value to her wifehood and maternity; 
 they were her duties, rather than her glories. 
 But for all that she felt emotionally plumper 
 than Laura. It was well to be loved, to be 
 necessary to other people. But Laura too was 
 loved, and Laura was necessary. Caroline did 
 not know what the children would do without 
 their Aunt Lolly. 
 
 Every one spoke of her as Aunt Lolly, till 
 in the course of time she had almost forgotten’ 
 her baptismal name. 
 
 “Say How-do to Auntie Laura,” said Caro- 
 line to Fancy. ‘This was long ago in the re- 
 furbished nursery at Lady Place when Laura 
 
 60 
 
 3 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 knelt timidly before her first niece, while the 
 London nurse bustled round them unpacking 
 soft hair-brushes and pots of cold cream, and 
 hanging linen to air upon the tall nursery 
 fender. 
 
 “How-do, Auntie Lolly,” said Fancy, gra- 
 
 ciously thrusting forward a fur monkey. 
 _ “She’s taken to you at once, Laura,” said 
 Caroline. “I was afraid this journey would 
 upset her, but she’s borne it better than any 
 of us.” 
 
 “Journeys are nothing to them at that age, 
 ma’am,” said the nurse. ‘“‘Now suppose you 
 tell your new auntie what you call Monkey.” 
 
 “Auntie Lolly, Auntie Lolly,’ repeated 
 Fancy, rhythmically banging the monkey against 
 the table-leg. 
 
 The name hit upon by Fancy was accepted 
 by Marion and Titus; before long their parents 
 made use of it also. Everard never spoke of 
 his daughter but as Laura, even when he spoke 
 of her to his grandchildren. He was too old 
 to change his ways, and he had, in any case, a 
 prejudice against nicknames and abbreviations. 
 But when Laura went to London she left Laura 
 behind, and entered into a state of Aunt Lolly. 
 She had quitted so much of herself in quitting 
 
 61 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Somerset that it seemed natural to relinquish 
 her name also. Divested of her easily-worn 
 honours as mistress of the household, shorn of 
 her long meandering country days, sleeping in a 
 smart brass bedstead instead of her old and rather 
 pompous four-poster, wearing unaccustomed 
 clothes and performing unaccustomed duties, 
 she seemed to herself to have become a different 
 person. Or rather, she had become two per- 
 sons, each different. One was Aunt Lolly, a 
 middle-aging lady, light-footed upon stairs, and 
 indispensable for Christmas Eve and birthday 
 preparations. ‘The other was Miss Willowes, 
 “my sister-in-law Miss Willowes,” whom Car- 
 oline would introduce, and abandon to a feel- 
 ing of being neither light-footed nor indis-— 
 * pensable. But Laura was put away. When 
 Henry asked her to witness some document for 
 him her Laura Erminia Willowes seemed as 
 much a thing out of common speech as the 
 Spinster that followed it. She would look, and 
 be surprised that such a dignified name should 
 belong to her. 
 
 ‘Twice a year, in spring and in summer, the 
 Willowes family went into the country for a 
 holiday. For the first three years of Laura’s 
 London life they went as a matter of course 
 
 62 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to Lady Place. There once more arose the 
 problem of how two children of one sex can 
 play nicely with a much younger child of the 
 other. Fancy and Marion played at tea-parties 
 under the weeping ash, and ‘Titus was the butler 
 with a tin tray. Titus would presently run off 
 and play by himself at soldiers, beating martial 
 tattoos upon the tray. But now there was no 
 danger of the youngest member of the party 
 falling into the pond, for Aunt Lolly was al- 
 ways on guard. 
 
 Laura enjoyed the visits to Lady Place, but 
 her enjoyment did not go very deep. ‘The 
 knowledge that she now was a visitor where 
 she had formerly been at home seemed to place 
 a clear sheet of glass between her and her sur- 
 roundings. She felt none of the grudge of the 
 dispossessed; she scarcely gave a thought to the 
 old days. It was as if in the agony of leaving 
 Lady Place after her father’s death she had said 
 good-bye so irremediably that she could never 
 really come there again. 
 
 But the visits to Lady Place came to a sad 
 end, for in 1905 James died suddenly of heart- 
 failure. Sibyl decided that she could not go on 
 living alone in the country. A manager was 
 found for the brewery, Lady Place was let un- 
 
 63 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 furnished upon a long lease, and Sibyl and the 
 four-years-old heir of the Willowes name and 
 traditions moved to a small place in Hampstead. 
 Sibyl had proposed to sell some of the furniture, 
 for there was a great deal more of it than she 
 needed, and most of it was too large to fit into 
 her new dwelling. ‘This project was opposed 
 by Henry, and with considerable heat. ‘The 
 family establishment must, he admitted, be 
 broken up, but he would allow no part of it 
 to be alienated. All the furniture that could 
 not be found room for at Hampstead or at 
 Apsley Terrace must be stored till ‘Titus should 
 be of an age to resume the tenure of Lady 
 Place. 
 
 To Laura it seemed as though some familiar 
 murmuring brook had suddenly gone under- 
 ground. ‘There it flowed, silenced and ob- 
 scured, until the moment when it should re- 
 appear and murmur again between green banks. 
 She thought of ‘Titus as a grown man and her- 
 self as an old woman meeting among’ the 
 familiar belongings. She believed that when 
 she was old the ghost-like feeling that distressed 
 her would matter less. She hoped that she 
 might not die before that day, if it were only ~ 
 that she would remember so well, as Titus 
 
 64 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 could not, how the furniture stood in the rooms 
 and the pictures hung on the walls. | 
 
 But by then, she said to herself, Titus would 
 have a wife with tastes of her own. Sibyl 
 would have liked to alter several things, but 
 tradition had been too strong for her. It 
 would be a very different matter in twenty 
 years time. ‘The chairs and tables and cabinets 
 would come out blinking and forgetful from 
 their long storage in darkness. They would 
 have lost the individuality by which they had 
 made certain corners so surely their own. The 
 - Lady Place she had known was over. She 
 could remember it if she pleased; but she must 
 not think of it. 
 
 Meanwhile Emma’s harp trailed its strings 
 in her bedroom. Ratafee was removed to 
 Hampstead. ‘Titus had insisted upon this. 
 
 She wondered if Henry felt as she did. He 
 had shown a great deal of Willowes spirit over 
 the furniture, but otherwise he had not ex- 
 pressed himself. In person Henry, so it was 
 said, resembled his grandfather who had made 
 the move from Dorset to Somerset—the sacri- 
 legious move which the home-loving of the 
 ~Willowes had so soon sanctified that in the 
 third generation she was feeling like this about 
 
 65 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Lady Place. Henry seemed to resemble his 
 grandfather in spirit also. He could house all 
 the family traditions in his practical mind, and 
 for the rest talk about bricks and mortar. He 
 concerned himself with the terms of Sibyl’s 
 lease, the agreement with the manager of the 
 brewery, and the question of finding a satis- 
 factory place to carry his family to for the 
 holidays. 
 
 After some experiments they settled down to 
 a routine that*with a few modifications for the 
 sake of variety or convenience served them for 
 the next fifteen years. In spring they went to 
 some moderately popular health resort and 
 stayed in a hotel, for it was found that the un- 
 certainty of an English spring, let alone the 
 uncertainty of a Christian Easter, made lodg- 
 ings unsatisfactory at that time of year. In 
 summer they went into lodgings, or took a fur- 
 nished house in some seaside village without any 
 attractions. “hey did this, not to be econom- 
 ical—there was no need for economy—but be- 
 cause they found rather plain dull holidays the 
 most refreshing. Henry was content with a 
 little unsophisticated golf and float-fishing. 
 The children bathed and played on the beach 
 and went on bicycling expeditions; and Caro- 
 
 66 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 line and Laura watched the children bathe and 
 play, and replenished their stock of under- 
 clothes, and rested from the strain of London 
 housekeeping. Sometimes Caroline did a little 
 reading. Sometimes Sibyl and ‘Titus stayed 
 with them, or Jitus stayed with them alone 
 while his mother paid visits. 
 
 Laura looked forward with pleasure to the 
 summer holidays (the Easter holidays she never 
 cared about, as she had a particular dislike for 
 palms); but after the first shock of arrival and 
 smelling the sea, the days seemed to dribble out 
 very much like the days in London. When 
 the end came, and she looked back from the 
 wagonette over the past weeks, she found that 
 after all she had done few of the things she 
 intended to do. She would have liked to go 
 by herself for long walks inland and find 
 strange herbs, but she was too useful to be al- 
 lowed to stray. She had once formed an in- 
 distinct project of observing limpets. But for 
 all her observations she discovered little save 
 that if you sit very still for a long time the 
 limpet will begin to move sideways, and that 
 it is almost impossible to sit very still for a long 
 time and keep your attention fixed upon such a 
 small object as a limpet without feeling slightly 
 
 67 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 hypnotised and slightly sick. On the lowest 
 
 count she seldom contrived to read all the books 
 or to finish all the needlework which she had 
 taken with her. And the freckles on her nose 
 mocked her with the receptivity of her skin 
 compared to the dullness of her senses. 
 
 They were submerged in the usual quiet 
 summer holidays when the war broke out. 
 The parish magazine said: ‘““The vicar had 
 scarcely left East Bingham when war was de- 
 clared.” ‘The vicar was made of stouter stuff 
 than they. He continued his holiday, but the 
 Willoweses went back to London. Laura had 
 never seen London in August before. It had 
 an arrested look, as though the war were a 
 kind of premature autumn. She was extraor- 
 dinarily moved; as they drove across the river 
 from Waterloo she wanted to cry. ‘That same 
 evening Fancy went upstairs and scrubbed the 
 boxroom floor for the sake of practice. She 
 upset the bucket, and large damp patches ap- 
 peared on the ceiling of Laura’s room. 
 
 For a month Fancy behaved like a cat whose 
 kittens have been drowned. If her family had 
 not been so taken up with the war they would 
 have been alarmed at this change in her de- 
 meanour. As it was, they scarcely noticed it. 
 
 68 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 When she came in very late for lunch and said: 
 “T am going to marry Kit Bendigo on Satur- 
 day,” Henry said, “Very well, my dear. It’s 
 
 your day, not mine,” 
 
 and ordered champagne 
 to be brought up. For a moment Laura 
 sthought she heard her father speaking. She 
 knew that Henry disapproved of Kit Bendigo 
 as a husband for Fancy: Willoweses did not 
 mate with Bendigos. But now he was more 
 than resigned—he was ready. And he swal- 
 lowed the gnat as unswervingly as the camel, 
 which, if Laura had wanted to be ill-natured 
 just then, would have surprised her as being the 
 greater feat. Wailloweses do not marry at five 
 days’ notice. But Fancy was married on 
 Saturday, and her parents discovered that a hasty 
 wedding can cost quite as much as a formal 
 one. In the mood that they were in this af- 
 forded them some slight satisfaction. 
 
 Kit Bendigo was killed in December 1916. 
 Fancy received the news calmly; two years’ 
 war-work and a daughter thrown in had 
 steadied her nerves. Kit was a dear, of course, 
 poor old Kit. But there was a war on, and 
 people get killed in wars. If it came to that, 
 she was working in a high-explosive shed her- 
 self. Caroline could not understand her eldest 
 
 69 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 daughter. She was baffled and annoyed by the 
 turn her own good sense inherited had taken. 
 ‘The married nun looked at the widowed am- 
 azon and refused battle. At least Fancy might 
 stay in her very expensive flat and be a mother 
 to her baby. But Fancy drew on a pair of, 
 heavy gauntlet gloves and went to France to 
 drive motor lorries. Caroline dared not say a 
 word. 
 
 ‘The war had no such excitements for Laura. 
 Four times a week she went to a depot and did 
 up parcels. She did them up so well that no 
 one thought of offering her a change of work. 
 ‘The parcel-room was cold and encumbered, 
 early in the war some one had decorated the 
 walls with recruiting posters. By degrees these 
 faded. ‘The ruddy young man and his Spartan 
 mother grew pale, as if with fear, and Bri- 
 tannia’s scarlet cloak trailing on the waters 
 bleached to a cocoa-ish pink. Laura watched 
 them discolour with a muffled heart. She 
 would not allow herself the cheap symbolism 
 they provoked. ‘Time will bleach the scarlet 
 from young men’s cheeks, and from Britannia’s 
 mantle. But blood was scarlet as ever, and she 
 believed that, however despairing her disap- 
 proval, that blood was being shed for her. 
 
 70 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 She continued to do up parcels until the 
 eleventh day of November 1918. ‘Then, when 
 she heard the noise of cheering and the sound- 
 ing of hooters, she left her work and went 
 home. ‘The house was empty. Every one had 
 gone out to rejoice. She went up to her room 
 and sat down on the bed. She felt cold and 
 sick, she trembled from head to foot as once 
 she had done after witnessing a dog-fight. All 
 the hooters were sounding, they seemed to dom- 
 ineer over the noises of rejoicing with sarcastic 
 emphasis. She got up and walked about the 
 room. On the mantelpiece was a photograph 
 of Titus. ‘“‘Well,” she said to it, “‘you’ve 
 escaped killing, anyhow.”? Her voice sounded 
 harsh and unreal, she thought the walls of her 
 room were shaking at the concussion, like stage 
 walls. She lay down upon her bed, and pres- 
 ently fainted. 
 
 When she came to herself again she had been 
 discovered by Caroline and put to bed with 
 influenza. She was grateful for this, and for 
 the darkened room and the cool clinking tum- 
 blers. She was even grateful for the bad 
 dreams which visited her every night and sent 
 up her temperature. By their aid she was en- 
 abled to stay in bed for a fortnight, a thing 
 
 71 
 
LOU iY Sw id bY OoeE's 
 
 she had not done since she came to London. 
 
 When she went downstairs again she found 
 Henry and Caroline talking of better days to 
 come. ‘The house was unaltered, yet it had a 
 general air of refurbishment. She also, after 
 her fortnight in bed, felt somehow refurbished, 
 and was soon drawn into the talk of better 
 days. [here was nothing immoderate in the 
 family display of satisfaction. Henry still 
 found frowning matter in the Tvzmes, and 
 Caroline did not relinquish a single economy. 
 But the satisfaction was there, a demure 
 Willowes-like satisfaction in the family tree 
 that had endured the gale with an unflinching 
 green heart. Laura saw nothing in this to 
 quarrel with. She was rather proud of the 
 Willowes war record; she admired the stolid 
 decorum which had mastered four years of dis- 
 integration, and was stolid and decorous still. 
 A lady had inquired of Henry: ‘“‘What do you 
 do in air-raids?. Do you go down to the cellar 
 or up to the roof?” “We do neither,” Henry 
 had replied. ‘We stay where we are.” <A 
 thrill had passed through Laura when she heard 
 this statement of the Willowes mind. But af- 
 terwards she questioned the validity of the 
 thrill. Was it nothing more than the response 
 
 72 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 of her emotions to other old and honourable 
 symbols such as the trooping of the colours and 
 the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians, symbols 
 too old and too honourable to have called out 
 her thoughts? She saw how admirable it was 
 for Henry and Caroline to have stayed where 
 they were. But she was conscious, more con- 
 scious than they were, that the younger mem- 
 bers of the family had somehow moved into 
 new positions. And she herself, had she not 
 slightly strained against her moorings, fast and 
 far sunk as they were? But now the buffeting 
 waves withdrew, and she began to settle back 
 into her place, and to see all around her once 
 more the familiar undisturbed shadows of 
 familiar things. Outwardly there was no dif- 
 ference between her and Henry and Caroline 
 in their resumption of peace. But they, she 
 thought, had done with the war, whereas she 
 had only shelved it, and that by an accident of 
 consciousness. 
 
 When the better days to come came, they 
 proved to be modelled as closely as possible upon 
 the days that were past. It was astonishing 
 what little difference differences had made. 
 When they went back to East Bingham—for 
 owing to its military importance, East Bingham 
 
 73 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 had been unsuited for holidays—there were at 
 first a good many traces of war lying about, 
 such as sandbags and barbed-wire entangle- 
 ments, But on the following summer the 
 sandbags had rotted and burst and the barbed- 
 wire had been absorbed into the farmer’s fences. 
 So, Laura thought, such warlike phenomena as 
 Mr. Wolf-Saunders, Fancy’s second husband, 
 and Jemima and Rosalind, Fancy’s two daugh- 
 ters, might well disappear off the family land- 
 scape. Mr. Wolf-Saunders recumbent on the 
 beach was indeed much hike a sandbag, and no 
 more arresting to the eye. Jemima and Rosa- 
 lind were more obtrusive. Here was a new 
 generation to call her Aunt Lolly and find her 
 as indispensable as did the last. 
 
 “It is quite like old times,” said Caroline, 
 who sat working besidé her. “‘Isn’t it, Lolly?” 
 
 “Except for these anachronisms,” said Laura. 
 
 Caroline removed the seaweed which Jemima | 
 had stuffed into her work-bag. “Bless them!” 
 she said absently. ‘We shall soon be back in 
 town again.” | 
 
 74 
 
Part 2 
 
 HE Willoweses came back to London 
 about the second week in September. 
 For many years the children’s schooling had 
 governed the date of their return; and when 
 the children had grown too old for school, the 
 habit had grown too old to be broken. ‘There 
 was also a further reason. ‘The fallen leaves, 
 so Henry and Caroline thought, made the coun- 
 try unhealthy after the second week in Septem- 
 ber. When Laura was younger she had some- 
 times tried to argue that, even allowing the un- 
 healthiness of fallen leaves, leaves at that time 
 of year were still green upon the trees. This 
 was considered mere casuistry. When _ they 
 walked in Kensington Gardens upon the first 
 Sunday morning after their return, Caroline 
 would point along the tarnishing vistas and say: 
 “You see, Lolly, the leaves are beginning to fali. 
 It was quite time to come home.” 
 It was useless to protest that autumn begins 
 earlier in London than it does in the country. 
 
 75 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 That it did so, Laura knew well. ‘That was 
 why she disliked having to come back; autumn 
 boded her no good, and it was hard that by a 
 day’s train-journey she should lose almost a 
 month’s reprieve. Obediently looking along the 
 tarnishing vistas, she knew that once again she 
 was in for it. 
 
 What It was exactly, she would have found 
 hard to say. She sometimes told herself that it 
 must be the yearly reverberation of those miser- 
 able first months in London when her sorrow 
 for her father’s death was still fresh. No other 
 winter had been so cold or so long, not even the 
 long cold winters of the war. Yet now her 
 thoughts of Everard were mellowed and pain- 
 less, and she had long ago forgiven her sorrow. 
 Had the coming of autumn quickened in her 
 only an experienced grief she would not have 
 dreaded it thus, nor felt so restless and tor- 
 mented. 
 
 Her disquiet had no relevance to her life. It 
 arose out of the ground with the smell of the 
 dead leaves: it followed her through the dark- 
 ening streets; it confronted her in the look of 
 the risen moon. “Now! Now!” it said to 
 her: and no more. ‘The moon seemed to have 
 torn the leaves from the trees that it might stare 
 
 76 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 at her more imperiously. Sometimes she tried 
 to account for her uneasiness by saying that she 
 was growing old, and that the year’s death re- 
 minded her of her own. She compared herself 
 to the ripening acorn that feels through wind- 
 less autumnal days and nights the increasing pull 
 of the earth below. ‘That explanation was very 
 poetical and suitable. But it did not explain 
 what she felt. She was not wildly anxious 
 either to die or to live; why, then, should she 
 be rent by this anxiety? 
 
 At these times she was subject to a peculiar 
 kind of day-dreaming, so vivid as to be almost a 
 hallucination: that she was in the country, at 
 dusk, and alone, and strangely at peace. She 
 did not recall the places which she had visited 
 in holiday-time, these reproached her like 
 opportunities neglected. But while her body 
 sat before the first fires and was cosy with 
 Henry and Caroline, her mind walked by 
 lonely seaboards, in marshes and fens, or came 
 at nightfall to the edge of a wood. She never 
 imagined herself in these places by daylight. 
 She never thought of them as being in any way 
 beautiful. It was not beauty at all that she 
 wanted, or, depressed though she was, she would 
 have bought a ticket to somewhere or other upon 
 
 77 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 the Metropolitan railway and gone out to see 
 the recumbent autumnal graces of the country- 
 side. Her mind was groping after something 
 that eluded her experience, a something that was 
 shadowy and menacing, and yet in some way 
 congenial; a something that lurked in waste 
 places, that was hinted at by the sound of water 
 gurgling through deep channels and by the voices 
 of birds of ill-omen. Loneliness, dreariness, 
 aptness for arousing a sense of fear, a kind of 
 ungodly hallowedness—these were the things 
 that called her thoughts away from the com- 
 fortable fireside. 
 
 In this mood she would sometimes go off to 
 explore among the City churches, or to lose 
 herself in the riverside quarters east of the Pool. 
 She liked to think of the London of Defoe’s 
 Journal, and to fancy herself back in the seven- 
 teenth century, when, so it seemed to her, there 
 were still darknesses in men’s minds. Once, 
 hemmed in by the jostling tombstones at Bunhill 
 Fields, she almost pounced on the clue to her 
 disquiet; and once again in the goods-yard of. 
 the G.W.R., where she had gone to find, not 
 her own secret, but a case of apples for Caroline. 
 
 As time went on Laura grew accustomed to 
 this recurrent autumnal fever. It was as much 
 
 78 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 a sign of the season as the falling leaves or the 
 first frost. Before the end of November it was 
 all over and done with. ‘The next moon had 
 no message for her. Her rambles in the strange 
 places of the mind were at an end. And if 
 she still went on expeditions to Rotherhithe or 
 the Jews’ Burying-Ground, she went in search 
 for no more than a little diversion. Nothing 
 was left but cold and sleet and the knowledge 
 that all this fuss had been about nothing. She 
 fortified herself against the dismalness of this 
 reaction by various small self-indulgences. Out 
 of these she had contrived for herself a sort of 
 mental fur coat. Roasted chestnuts could be 
 bought and taken home for bedroom eating. 
 Second-hand book-shops were never so enticing; 
 and the combination of east winds and London 
 water made it allowable to experiment in the 
 most expensive soaps. Coming back from her 
 expeditions, westward from the city with the 
 sunset in her eyes, or eastward from a waning 
 Kew, she would pause for a sumptuous and 
 furtive tea, eating marrons glacés with a silver 
 fork in the reflecting warm glitter of a smart 
 pastry-cook’s, “These things were exciting 
 enough to be pleasurable, for she kept them 
 secret. Henry and Caroline would scarcely 
 
 79 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 have minded if they had known. ‘They were 
 quite indifferent as to where and how she spent 
 her afternoons; they felt no need to question 
 her, since they could be sure that she would do 
 nothing unsuitable or extravagant. Laura’s ex- 
 peditions were secret because no one asked her 
 where she had been. Had they asked, she must 
 have answered. But she did not examine too 
 closely into this; she liked to think of them as 
 secret. 
 
 One manifestation of the fur-coat policy, 
 however, could not be kept from their knowl- 
 edge, and that manifestation slightly qualified 
 their trust that Laura would do nothing unsuit- 
 able or extravagant. 
 
 Except for a gradual increment of Christmas 
 and birthday presents, Laura’s room had altered 
 little since the day it ceased to be the small 
 spare-room and became hers. But every win- 
 ter it blossomed with an unseasonable lux- 
 ury of flowers, profusely, shameless as a green- 
 house. 
 
 “Why, Lolly! Lilies at this time of year!” 
 Caroline would say, not reproachfully, but still 
 with a consciousness that in the drawing-room 
 there were dahlias, and in the dining-room a 
 fern, and in her own sitting-room, where she 
 
 80 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 did the accounts, neither ferns nor flowers. 
 Then Laura would thrust the liles into her 
 hands; and she would take them to show that she 
 had not spoken with ill-will. Besides, Lolly 
 would really see more of them if they were in 
 the drawing-room. And the next day she 
 would meet Laura on the stairs carrying azaleas. 
 On one occasion even Henry had noticed the 
 splendour of the lilies: red lilies, angular, au- 
 thoritative in form and colour like cardinals’ 
 hats. 
 
 “Where do these come from?” Caroline had 
 asked, knowing well that nothing so costly in 
 appearance could come from her florist. 
 
 “From Africa,” Laura had answered, press- 
 ing the firm, wet stalks into her hand. 
 
 “Oh well, I daresay they are quite common 
 said Caroline to herself, trying 
 
 flowers there,” 
 
 to gloss over the slight awkwardness of accept- 
 ing a trifle so needlessly splendid. 
 Henry had also asked where they came from. 
 “From Anthos, I believe,” said Caroline. 
 “Ah!” said Henry, and roused the coins in 
 his trousers pocket. 
 “Tt’s rather naughty of Lolly. Would you 
 like me just to hint to her that she mustn’t be 
 quite so reckless?” 
 
 81 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “No. Better not. No need for her to worry 
 about such things.” 
 
 Husband and wife exchanged a glance of 
 compassionate understanding. It was better not. 
 Much better that Lolly should not be worried 
 about money matters. She was safe in their 
 hands. ‘They could look after Lolly. Henry 
 was like a wall, and Caroline’s breasts were like 
 towers. 
 
 They condoned this extravagance, yet they 
 mistrusted it. “Time justified them in their 
 mistrust. Like many stupid people, they pos- 
 sessed acute instincts. ‘He that is unfaithful in 
 little things . . .” Caroline would say when 
 the children forgot to wind up their watches. 
 Their instinct told them that the same truth 
 applies to extravagance in little things. “They 
 were wiser than they knew. When Laura’s 
 extravagance in great things came it staggered 
 them so completely that they forgot how ju- 
 diciously they had suspected it beforehand. 
 
 It befell in the winter of 1921. “The war 
 was safely over, so was their silver wedding, so” 
 was Marion’s first confinement. ‘Titus was in 
 his third year at Oxford, Sibyl was at last going 
 grey, Henry might be made a judge at any 
 moment. ‘The Trade Returns and the Stock 
 
 82 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Exchange were not all that they should be, and 
 there was always the influenza. But Henry 
 was doing well enough to be lenient to his 
 investments, and Aunt Lucilla and her fortune 
 had been mercifully released. In the coming 
 spring Caroline proposed to have the house 
 thoroughly done up. ‘The lesser renovations 
 she was getting over beforehand, and that was 
 why Laura had gone out before the shops shut 
 to show Mr. Bunting a pair of massy candle- 
 sticks and to inquire how much he would charge 
 for re-plating them. His estimate was high, 
 too high to be accepted upon her own responsi- 
 bility. She decided to carry the candlesticks 
 back and consult Caroline. 
 
 Mr. Bunting lived in the Earls Court Road, 
 rather a long way off for such a family friend. 
 But she had plenty of time for walking back, 
 and for diversion she thought she would take 
 a circuitous route, including the two foxes who 
 guard the forsaken approach in Holland Park 
 and the lane beside the Bayswater Synagogue. 
 It was in Moscow Road that she began to be 
 extravagant. But when she walked into the 
 little shop she had no particular intention of 
 extravagance, for Caroline’s parcel hung re- 
 mindingly upon her arm, and the shop itself, 
 
 83 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 half florist and half greengrocer, had a simple 
 appearance. 
 
 There were several other customers, and 
 while she stood waiting to be served she looked 
 about her. ‘The aspect of the shop pleased her 
 greatly. It was small and homely. Fruit and 
 flowers and vegetables were crowded together in 
 countrified disorder. On the sloping shelf in 
 the window, among apples and rough-skinned 
 cooking pears and trays of walnuts, chestnuts, 
 and filberts, was a basket of eggs, smooth and 
 brown, like some larger kind of nut. At one 
 side of the room was a wooden staging. On 
 this stood jars of home-made jam and bottled 
 fruits. It was as though the remnants of 
 summer had come into the little shop for shelter. 
 On the floor lay a heap of earthy turnips. 
 
 Laura looked at the bottled fruits, the sliced 
 pears in syrup, the glistening red plums, the 
 greengages. She thought of the woman who 
 had filled those jars and fastened on the blad- 
 ders. Perhaps the greengrocer’s mother lived in 
 the country. A solitary old woman picking 
 fruit in a darkening orchard, rubbing her rough 
 fingertips over the smooth-skinned plums, a lean 
 wiry old woman, standing with upstretched arms 
 among her fruit trees as though she were a tree 
 
 84 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 herself, growing out of the long grass, with 
 arms stretched up like branches. It grew darker 
 and darker; still she worked on, methodically 
 stripping the quivering taut boughs one after the 
 other. 
 
 As Laura stood waiting she felt a great long- 
 ing. It weighed upon her lke the load of 
 ripened fruit upon a tree. She forgot the shop, 
 the other customers, her own errand. She for- 
 got the winter air outside, the people going by 
 on the wet pavements. She forgot that she was 
 in London, she forgot the whole of her London 
 life. She seemed to be standing alone in a 
 darkening orchard, her feet in the grass, her 
 arms stretched up to the pattern of leaves and 
 fruit, her fingers seeking the rounded ovals of 
 the fruit among the pointed ovals of the leaves. 
 The air about her was cool and moist. There 
 was no sound, for the birds had left off singing 
 and the owls had not yet begun to hoot. No 
 sound, except sometimes the soft thud of a ripe 
 plum falling into the grass, to lie there a com- 
 pact shadow among shadows. ‘The back of her 
 neck ached a little with the strain of holding up 
 her arms. Her fingers searched among the 
 leaves. 
 
 She started as the man of the shop came up 
 
 85 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to her and asked her what she wished for. Her 
 eyes blinked, she looked with surprise at the 
 gloves upon her hands. 
 
 “T want one of those large chrysanthemums,” 
 she said, and turned towards the window where 
 they stood in a brown jar. ‘There were the 
 apples and pears, the eggs, the disordered nuts 
 overflowing from their compartments. There 
 on the floor were the earthy turnips, and close 
 at hand were the jams and bottled fruits. If 
 she was behaving foolishly, if she looked like 
 a woman roused out of a fond dream, these 
 were kindly things to waken to. “The man of 
 the shop also had a kind face. He wore a 
 gardener’s apron, and his hands were brown and 
 dry as if he had been handling earth. 
 
 “Which one would you like, ma’am?” he 
 asked, turning the bunch of chrysanthemums 
 about that she might choose for herself. She 
 looked at the large mop-headed blossoms. 
 ‘Their curled petals were deep garnet colour 
 within and tawny yellow without. As the light 
 fell on their sleek flesh the garnet colour 
 glowed, the tawny yellow paled as if it were 
 thinly washed with silver. She longed for the 
 moment when she might stroke her hand over 
 those mop heads. 
 
 86 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “T think I will take them all,” she said. 
 
 ““They’re lovely blooms,” said the man. 
 
 He was pleased. He did not expect such a 
 good customer at this late hour. 
 
 When he brought her the change from her 
 pound-note and the chrysanthemums pinned up 
 in sheets of white paper, he brought also several 
 sprays of beech leaves. ‘These, he explained, 
 were thrown in with her purchase. Laura took 
 them into her arms. ‘The great fans of orange 
 tracery seemed to her even more beautiful than 
 the chrysanthemums, for they had been given 
 to her, they were a surprise. She sniffed. 
 ‘They smelt of woods, of dark rustling woods 
 like the wood to whose edge she came so often 
 in the country of her autumn imagination. She 
 stood very still to make quite sure of her sensa- 
 tions. ‘Then: “Where do they come from?” 
 she asked. 
 
 “From near Chenies, ma’am, in Buckingham- 
 shire. I have a sister living there, and every 
 Sunday I go out to see her, and bring back a 
 load of foliage with me.” 
 
 There was no need to ask now who made 
 the jams and tied on the bladders. Laura knew 
 all that she wanted to know. Her course lay 
 clear before her. Holding the sprays of beech 
 
 87 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 as though she were marching on Dunsinane, she 
 went to a bookseller’s. “There she bought a 
 small guide-book to the Chilterns and inquired 
 for a map of that district. It must, she ex- 
 plained, be very detailed, and give as many 
 names and footpaths as possible. Her eyes were 
 so bright and her demands so earnest that the 
 bookseller, though he had not that kind of map, 
 was sympathetic, and directed her to another 
 shop where she could find what she wanted. 
 It was only a little way off, but closing-time 
 was at hand, so she took a taxi. Having bought 
 the map she took another taxi home. But at 
 the top of Apsley Terrace she had one of her 
 impulses of secrecy and told the driver that she 
 would walk the rest of the way. 
 
 ‘There was rather a narrow squeak in the 
 hall, for Caroline’s parcel became entangled in 
 the gong stand, and she heard Henry coming 
 up from the wine cellar. If she alarmed the 
 gong Henry would quicken his steps. She had 
 no time to waste on Henry just then for she 
 had a great deal to think of before dinner. She 
 ran up to her room, arranged the chrysanthe- 
 mums and the beech leaves, and began to read 
 the guide-book. It was just what she wanted, 
 for it was extremely plain and unperturbed. 
 
 88 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Beginning as early as possible with Geology, it 
 passed to Flora and Fauna, Watersheds, Ecclesi- 
 astical Foundations «and Local Government. 
 After that came a list of all the towns and vil- 
 lages, shortly described in alphabetical order. 
 Lamb’s End had three hundred inhabitants and 
 a perpendicular font. At Walpole St. Dennis 
 was the country seat of the Bartlet family, faced 
 With stucco and situated upon an eminence. 
 The almshouses at Semple, built in 1703 by 
 Bethia Hood, had a fine pair of wrought-iron 
 gates. It was dark as she pressed her nose 
 against the scrolls and rivets. Bats flickered in 
 the little courtyard, and shadows moved across 
 the yellow blinds. Had she been born a deserv- 
 ing widow, life would have been simplified. 
 
 She wasted no time over this regret, for now 
 at last she was simplifying life for herself. She 
 unfolded the map. ‘The woods were coloured 
 green and the main roads red. ‘There was a 
 great deal of green. She looked at the beech 
 leaves. As she looked a leaf detached itself and 
 fell slowly. She remembered squirrels. 
 
 The stairs creaked under the tread of Dunlop 
 with the hot-water can. Dunlop entered, 
 glancing neither at Laura curled askew on the 
 bed nor at the chrysanthemums ennobling the 
 
 89 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 dressing table. She was a perfectly trained 
 servant. Before she left the room she took a 
 deep breath, stooped down, and picked up the 
 beech leaf. 
 
 Quarter of an hour afterwards Laura ex- 
 claimed: ‘Oh! a windmill!” She took up 
 the guide-book again, and began to read in- 
 tently. 
 
 She was roused by an unaccustomed clash of 
 affable voices in the hall. She remembered, 
 leapt off the bed, and dressed rapidly for the 
 family dinner-party. ‘They were all there when 
 she reached the drawing-room. Sibyl and 
 Titus, Fancy and her Mr. Wolf-Saunders, 
 Marion with the latest news from Sprat, who, 
 being in the Soudan, could not dine out with 
 his wife. Sprat had had another boil on 
 his neck, but it had yielded to treatment. 
 “Ah, poor fellow,” said Henry. He seemed 
 to be saying: “The price of Empire.” 
 
 During dinner Laura looked at her relations. 
 She felt as though she had awoken, unchanged, 
 from a twenty-years slumber, to find them 
 almost unrecognisable. She surveyed them, one 
 after the other. Even Henry and Caroline, 
 whom she saw every day, were half hidden un- 
 der their accumulations—accumulations of vros- 
 
 go 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 perity, authority, daily experience. “They were 
 carpeted with experience. No new event could 
 set jarring feet on them but they would absorb 
 and muffle the impact. If the boiler burst, if a 
 policeman climbed in at the window waving a 
 sword, Henry and Caroline would bring the 
 situation to heel by their massive experience of 
 normal boilers and normal policemen. 
 
 She turned her eyes to Sibyl. How strange 
 it was that Sibyl should have exchanged her 
 former look of a pretty ferret for this refined 
 and waxen mask. Only when she was silent, 
 though, as now she was, listening to Henry with 
 her eyes cast down to her empty plate: when 
 she spoke the ferret look came back. But Sibyl 
 in her house at Hampstead must have spent 
 many long afternoons in silence, learning this 
 unexpected beauty, preparing her face for 
 the last look of death. What had been her 
 thoughts? Why was she so different when she 
 spoke? Which, what, was the real Sibyl: the 
 greedy, agile little ferret or this memorial urn? 
 
 Fancy’s Mr. Wolf-Saunders had eaten all his 
 bread and was at a loss. Laura turned to him 
 and asked after her great-nephew, who was just 
 then determined to be a bus-conductor. “He 
 
 probably will be,” said his father gloomily, 
 gi 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “if things go on as they are at present.” 
 
 Great-nephews and great-nieces suggested 
 nephews and nieces. Resuming her scrutiny of 
 the table she looked at Fancy, Marion, and 
 Titus. They had grown up as surprisingly as 
 trees since she first knew them, and yet it did 
 not seem to her that they were so much changed 
 as their elders. ‘Titus, in particular, was easily 
 recognisable. She caught his eye, and he smiled 
 back at her, just as he had smiled back when he 
 was a baby. Now he was long and slim, and 
 his hay-coloured hair was brushed smoothly back 
 instead of standing up ina crest. But one lock 
 had fallen forward when he laughed, and hung 
 over his left eye, and this gave him a pleasing, 
 rustic look. She was glad still to be friends 
 with Titus. He might very usefully abet her, 
 and though she felt in no need of allies, a little 
 sympathy would do no harm. Certainly the 
 rustic forelock made ‘Titus look particularly con- 
 genial. And how greedily he was eating that 
 apple, and with what disparagement of imported 
 fruit he had waved away the Californian plums! 
 It was nice to feel sure of his understanding and 
 approval, since at this moment he was looking 
 the greatest Willowes of them all. 
 
 Most of the family attention was focussed on 
 
 92 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Titus that evening. No sooner had coffee been 
 served than Sibyl began about his career. Had 
 Caroline ever heard of anything more ridic- 
 ulous? ‘Titus still declared that he meant to 
 manage the family brewery. After all his suc- 
 cess at Oxford and his popularity, could any- 
 thing be more absurd than to bury himself in 
 Somerset? 
 
 His own name was the first thing that Titus 
 heard as he entered the drawing-room. He 
 greeted it with an approving smile, and sat down 
 by Laura, carefully crossing his long legs. 
 
 “She spurns at the brewery, and wants me to 
 take a studio in Hampstead and model bustos,”’ 
 he éxplained. 
 
 ‘Titus had a soft voice. His speech was 
 gentle and sedate. He chose his words with 
 extreme care, but escaped the charge of affecta- 
 tion by pronouncing them in a hesitating man- 
 ner. 
 
 “T’m sure sculpture is his métier,” said Sibyl. 
 “Or perhaps poetry. Anyhow, not brewing. I 
 wish you could have seen that little model he 
 made for the grocer at Arcachon.” 
 
 Marion said: “I thought bustos always had 
 wigs.” 
 
 “My dear, you’ve hit it. In fact, that is 
 
 93 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 my objection to this plan for making me 
 a sculptor. Revive the wig, and I object 
 no more. The head is the noblest part of 
 man’s anatomy. ‘Therefore enlarge it with a 
 wig.” 
 
 Henry thought the conversation was taking a 
 foolish turn. But as host it was his duty to 
 take part in it. 
 
 “What about the Elgin Marbles?” he in- 
 quired. “No wigs there.” 
 
 ‘The Peruke and its Functions in Attic Drama, 
 thought Titus, would be a pretty fancy. But 
 it would not do for his uncle. Agreeably he 
 admitted that there were no wigs in the Elgin 
 Marbles. 
 
 They fell into silence. At an ordinary din- 
 ner party Caroline would have felt this silence 
 to be a token that the dinner party was a failure. 
 But this was a family affair, there was no dis- 
 grace in having nothing to say. They were all 
 Willoweses and the silence was a seemly Wil- 
 lowes silence. She could even emphasise it by 
 counting her stitches aloud. | 
 
 All the chairs and sofas were comfortable. 
 The fire burnt brightly, the curtains hung in 
 solemn folds; they looked almost as solemn as 
 organ pipes. Lolly had gone off into one of 
 
 94 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 her day dreams, just her way, she would never 
 trouble to give a party the least prod. Only 
 Sibyl fidgeted, twisting her heel about in her 
 satin slipper. 
 
 “What pretty buckles, Sibyl! Have I seen 
 them before?” 
 
 Sibyl had bought them second-hand for next 
 to nothing. ‘They came from Arles, and the 
 old lady who had sold them to her had been 
 such a character. She repeated the character- 
 istic remarks of the old lady in a very competent 
 French accent. Her feet were as slim as ever, 
 and she could stretch them out very prettily. 
 Even in doing so she remembered to ask Car- 
 oline where they were going for the Easter 
 holidays. 
 
 “Oh, to Blythe, I expect,’ said Caroline. 
 “We know it.” 
 
 “When I have evicted my tenants and brewed 
 a large butt of family ale, I shall invite you all 
 down to Lady Place,” said ‘Titus. 
 
 “But before then,” said Laura, speaking 
 rather fast, “I hope you will all come to visit 
 me at Great Mop.” 
 
 Every one turned to stare at her in bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 “Of course, it won’t be as comfortable as 
 
 99 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 Lady Place. And I don’t suppose there will 
 
 be room for more than one of you at a time. 
 But I’m sure you’ll think it delightful.” 
 
 “T don’t understand,” said Caroline. ‘What 
 is this place, Lolly?” 
 
 “Great Mop. It’s not really Great. It’s in 
 the Chilterns.” 
 
 “But why should we go there?” 
 
 “To visit me. I’m going to live there.” 
 
 “Live there? My dear Lolly!” 
 
 “Live there, Aunt Lolly?” 
 
 ““This is very sudden. Is there really a place 
 called yer Wet 2 
 
 “Lolly, you are mystifying us.” 
 
 They all spoke at once, but Henry spoke 
 loudest, so Laura replied to him. 
 
 “No, Henry, I’m not mystifying you. Great 
 Mop is a village in the Chilterns, and I am go- 
 ing to live there, and perhaps keep a donkey. | 
 And you must all come on visits.” 
 
 “T’ve never even heard of the place!” said 
 Henry conclusively. 
 
 ‘' “But you'll love it. ‘A secluded hamlet in 
 the heart of the Chilterns, Great Mop is situated 
 twelve miles from Wickendon in a hilly district 
 with many beech-woods. The parish church 
 
 96 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 has a fine Norman tower and a squint. The 
 population is 227.” And quite close by on 
 a hill there is a ruined windmill, and the 
 nearest railway station is twelve miles off, and 
 
 there is a farm called Scramble Through the | 
 
 Pec 
 
 Henry thought it time to interrupt. “I sup- 
 pose you don’t expect us to believe all this.” 
 
 “I know. It does seem almost too good to 
 be true. But it is. DPve read it in a guide- 
 book, and seen it on a map.” 
 
 Bevel, all I can’say is... .” 
 
 “Henry! Henry!” said Caroline warningly. 
 Henry did not say it. He threw the cushion 
 out of his chair, glared at Laura, and turned 
 away his head. 
 
 For some time Titus’s attempts at speech had 
 hovered above the tumult, like one holy ap- 
 peasing dove loosed after the other. The last 
 dove was luckier. It settled on Laura. 
 
 “How nice of you to have a donkey. Will 
 it be a grey donkey, like Madam?” 
 
 “Do you remember dear Madam, then?” 
 
 “Of course [ remember dear Madam. I can 
 remember everything that happened to me when 
 I was four. I rode in one pannier, and you, 
 
 97 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Marion, rode in the other. And we went to 
 have tea in Potts’s Dingle.” 
 
 “With sponge cakes and raspberry jam, do 
 you remember?” 
 
 “Yes. And milk surging in a whisky bottle. 
 Will you have thatch or slate, Aunt Lolly? 
 Slate is very practical.” 
 
 “Thatch is more motherly. Anyhow, I shall 
 have a pump.” 
 
 “Will it be an indoor or an outdoor pump? 
 I ask, for I hope to pump on it quite often.” 
 
 “You will come to stay with me, won’t you, 
 Titus?” 
 
 Laura was a little cast-down. It did not 
 look, just then, as if any one else wanted to come 
 and stay with her at Great Mop. But Titus 
 was as sympathetic as she had hoped. ‘They 
 spent the rest of the evening telling each other 
 how she would live. By half-past ten their 
 conjectures had become so fantastic that the rest 
 of the family thought the whole scheme was 
 nothing more than one of Lolly’s odd jokes that 
 nobody was ever amused by. Henry took heart. 
 He rallied Laura, supposing that when she lived 
 at Great Mop she would start hunting for cat- 
 nip again, and become the village witch. 
 
 98 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “How lovely!” said Laura. 
 
 Henry was satisfied. Obviously Laura could 
 not be in earnest. 
 
 When the guests had gone, and Henry had 
 bolted and chained the door, and put out the 
 hall light, Laura hung about a little, thinking 
 that he or Caroline might wish to ask her more. 
 But they asked nothing and went upstairs to 
 bed. Soon after, Laura followed them. As 
 she passed their bedroom door she heard their 
 voices within, the comfortable fragmentary 
 talk of a husband and wife with complete con- 
 fidence in each other and nothing particular 
 to say. 
 
 Laura decided to tackle Henry on the mor- 
 row. She observed him during breakfast and 
 saw with satisfaction that he seemed to be in a 
 particularly benign mood. He had drunk three 
 cups of coffee, and said “Ah! poor fellow!” 
 when a wandering cornet-player began to play 
 on the pavement opposite. Laura took heart 
 from these good omens, and, breakfast being 
 over, and her brother and the Tzmes retired to 
 the study, she followed them thither. 
 
 “Henry,” she said. “I have come for a talk 
 with you.” 
 
 a9 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Henry looked up. “Talk away, Lolly,” he 
 said, and smiled at her. 
 
 ‘*A business talk,” she continued. 
 
 Henry folded the Times and laid it aside. 
 He also (if the expression may be allowed) 
 folded and laid aside his smile. 
 
 “Now, Lolly, what is it?” 
 
 His voice was kind, but business-like. Laura 
 took a deep breath, twisted the garnet ring 
 round her little finger, and began. 
 
 “Tt has just occurred to me, Henry, that I 
 am forty-seven.” 
 
 She paused. 
 
 “Go on!” said Henry. 
 
 “And that both the girls are married. I 
 don’t mean that that has just occurred to me 
 too, but it’s part of it. You know, really I’m 
 not much use to you now.” 
 
 “My dear Lolly!” remonstrated her brother. 
 “You are extremely useful. Besides, I have 
 never considered our relationship in that light.” 
 
 “So I have been thinking. And I have de- 
 cided that I should like to go and live at Great 
 Mop. You know, that place I was talking 
 about last night.” 
 
 Henry was silent. His face was completely 
 blank. Should she recall Great Mop to him 
 
 100 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 by once more repeating the description out of 
 the guide-book? 
 
 “In the Chilterns,” she murmured. “Pop. 
 oo." 
 
 Henry’s silence was unnerving her. 
 
 “Really, I think it would be a good plan. I 
 should like to live alone in the country. And 
 in my heart I think I have always meant to, 
 one day. But one day is so like another, it’s 
 almost impossible to throw salt on its tail. If 
 I don’t go soon, I never shall. So if you don’t | 
 mind, I should like to start as soon as possible.”’ 
 
 ‘There was another long pause. She could 
 not make out Henry at all. It was not like 
 him to say nothing when he was annoyed. She 
 had expected thunders and tramplings, and those 
 she could have weathered. But thus becalmed 
 under a lowering sky she was beginning to lose 
 her head. 
 
 At last he spoke. 
 
 “T hardly know what to say.” 
 
 “T’m sorry if the idea annoys you, Henry.” 
 
 “T am not annoyed. Jam grieved. Grieved 
 and astonished. For twenty years you have 
 lived under my roof. J have always thought— 
 I may be wrong, but I have always thought 
 —that you were happy here.” 
 
 IOL 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “Quite happy,” said Laura. 
 
 “Caroline and I have done all we could to 
 make youso. ‘The children—e// the children— 
 look on you as a second mother. We are all 
 devoted to you. And now, without a word of 
 warning, you propose to leave us and go and 
 live at a place called Great Mop. Lolly! I 
 must ask you to put this ridiculous idea out of 
 your head.” 
 
 “T never expected you to be so upset, Henry. 
 Perhaps I should have told you more gradually. 
 I should be sorry to hurt you.” 
 
 “You have hurt me, I admit,” said he, firmly 
 seizing on this advantage. “Still, let that pass. 
 Say you won’t leave us, Lolly.” 
 
 “T’m afraid I can’t quite do that.” 
 
 “But Lolly, what you want is absurd.” 
 
 “Tt’s only my own way, Henry.” 
 
 “If you would like a change, take one by all 
 means. Go away for a fortnight. Go away 
 fora month! ‘Take a little trip abroad if you 
 like. But come back to us at the end of it.” 
 
 “No, Henry. I love you all, but I feel I 
 have lived here long enough.” 
 
 “But why? But why? What has come 
 over you?” 
 
 Laura shook her head. 
 
 102 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “Surely you must have some reasons.” 
 
 “T have told you my reasons.” 
 
 “Lolly! I cannot allow this. You are my 
 sister. I consider you my charge. I must ask 
 you, once for all to drop this idea. It is not 
 sensible. Or suitable.” 
 
 “I have reminded you that I am forty-seven. 
 If I am not old enough now to know what is 
 sensible and suitable, I never shall be.” 
 
 “Apparently not.” 
 
 ‘This was more like Henry’s old form. But 
 though he had scored her off, it did not seem to 
 have encouraged him as much as scoring off 
 generally did. He began again, almost as a 
 suppliant. 
 
 “Be guided by me, Lolly. At least, take a 
 few days to think it over.” 
 
 “No, Henry. I don’t feel inclined to; Td 
 much rather get it over now. Besides, if you 
 are going to disapprove as violently as this, the 
 sooner I pack up and start the better.” 
 
 “You are mad. You talk of packing up and 
 starting when you have never even set eyes on 
 the place.” 
 
 “T was thinking of going there to-day, te 
 make arrangements.” 
 
 “Well, then, you will do nothing of the kind. 
 
 | 103 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 I’m sorry to seem harsh, Lolly. But you must 
 put all this out of your mind.” 
 
 “Why?” 
 
 “Tt is impracticable.” 
 
 “Nothing is impracticable for a single, 
 middle-aged woman with an income of her 
 own.” 
 
 Henry paled slightly, and said: “Your in- 
 come is no longer what it was.” 
 
 “Oh, taxes!” said Laura contemptuously. 
 “Never mind; even if it’s a little less, I can get 
 along on it.” 
 
 “You know nothing of business, Lolly. I 
 need not enter into explanations with you. It 
 should be enough for me to say that for the last 
 year your income has been practically non- 
 existent.” 
 
 “But I can still cash cheques.” 
 
 “TI have placed a sum at the bank to your 
 credit.” 
 
 Laura had grown rather pale too. Her eyes 
 shone. 
 
 “T’m afraid you must enter into explanations 
 with me, Henry. After all, it is my income, 
 and I have a right to know what has happened 
 to it.” 
 
 “Your capital has always been in my hands, 
 
 104 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Lolly, and I have administered it as I thought 
 fit.” | 
 
 “Go on,” said Laura. 
 
 “In 1920 I transferred the greater part of it 
 to the Ethiopian Development Syndicate, a per- 
 fectly sound investment which will in time be 
 as good as ever, if not better. Unfortunately, 
 owing to this Government and all this socialistic 
 talk the soundest investments have been badly 
 hit. ‘The Ethiopian Development Syndicate is 
 one of them.” 
 
 “Go on, Henry. I have understood quite 
 well so far. You have administered all my 
 money into something that doesn’t pay. Now 
 explain why you did this.” 
 
 “T had every reason for thinking that I should 
 be able to sell out at a profit almost immediately. 
 During November the shares had gone up from 
 534 to 8%. I bought in December at 8%. 
 They went to 834 and since then have steadily 
 sunk. ‘They now stand at 4. Of course, my 
 dear, you needn’t be alarmed. ‘They will rise 
 again the moment we have a Conservative Gov- 
 ernment, and that, thank Heaven, must come 
 soon. But you see at present it is out of the 
 question for you to think of leaving us.” 
 
 “But don’t these Ethiopians have dividends?” 
 
 105 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “These,” said Henry with dignity, “are not 
 the kind of shares that pay dividends. “They 
 are—that is to say, they were, and of course 
 will be again—a sound speculative investment. 
 But at present they pay no dividends worth men- 
 tioning. Now, Lolly, don’t become agitated. 
 J assure you that it is all perfectly all right. 
 But you must give up this idea of the country. 
 
 Anyhow, I’m sure you wouldn’t find it suit you. 
 
 You are rheumatic 
 
 Laura tried to interpose. 
 
 “—or will be. All the Willoweses are rheu- 
 matic. Buckinghamshire is damp. ‘Those po- 
 etical beech-woods make it so.. You see, trees 
 draw rain. It is one of the principles of at- 
 forestation. “The trees—that is to say, the 
 
 >] 
 
 rain 
 
 Laura stamped her foot with impatience. 
 “Have done with your trumpery red herrings!” 
 she cried. 
 
 She had never lost her temper like this be- 
 fore. It was a glorious sensation. 
 
 “Henry!” She could feel her voice crackle 
 round his ears. ‘You say you bought those 
 shares at eight and something, and that they are 
 now four. So if you sell out now yeu will 
 
 106 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 get rather less than half what you gave for 
 them.” 
 
 “Yes,” said Henry. Surely if Lolly were 
 business woman enough to grasp that so clearly, 
 she would in time see reason on other matters. 
 
 “Very well. You will sell them immedi- 
 ately 4 
 
 “Lolly!” 
 
 “and reinvest the money in something quite 
 unspeculative and unsound, like War Loan, that 
 will pay a proper dividend. TI shall still have 
 enough to manage on. I shan’t be as com fort- 
 able as I thought I should be. I shan’t be able 
 to afford the little house that I hoped for, nor 
 the donkey. But I shan’t mind much. It will 
 matter very little to me when I’m there.” 
 
 She stopped. She had forgotten Henry, and 
 the unpleasant things she meant to say to him. 
 She had come to the edge of the wood, and felt 
 its cool breath in her face. It did not matter 
 about the donkey, nor the house, nor the dark- 
 
 ening orchard even. If she were not to pick 
 
 fruit from her own trees, there were common 
 
 herbs and berries in plenty for her, growing 
 
 wherever she chose to wander. It is best as 
 
 one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, 
 107 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be 
 almost wholly earth before one dies. 
 
 As she left the room she turned and looked at 
 Henry. Such was her mood, she could have 
 blessed him solemnly, as before an eternal de- 
 parture. But he was sitting with his back to 
 her, and did not look round. When she had 
 gone he took out his handkerchief and wiped 
 his forehead. 
 
 Ten days later Laura arrived at Great Mop. 
 After the interview with Henry she encountered 
 no more opposition. Caroline knew better than 
 to persist against an obstinacy which had worsted 
 her husband, and the other members of the 
 family, their surprise being evaporated, were in- 
 different. ‘Titus was a little taken aback when 
 he found that his aunt’s romantic proposals were 
 seriously intended. He for his part was going 
 to Corsica. ‘A banal mountainous spot,” he 
 said politely, ““compared with Buckinghamshire.” 
 
 The day of Laura’s arrival was wet and 
 blusterous. She drove in a car from Wicken- 
 don. ‘The car lurched and rattled, and the wind 
 slapped the rain against the windows; Laura 
 could scarcely see the rising undulations of the 
 landscape. When the car drew up before her 
 new home, she stood for a moment looking up 
 
 108 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 the village street, but the prospect was inter- 
 . cepted by the umbrella under which Mrs. Leak 
 hastened to conduct her to the porch. So had 
 it rained, and so had the wind blown, on the 
 day when she had come on her visit of inspec- 
 tion and had taken rooms in Mrs. Leak’s cot- 
 tage. So, Henry and Caroline and their friends 
 had assured her, did it rain and blow all through 
 the winter in the Chilterns. No words of 
 theirs, they said, could describe how dismal and 
 bleak it would be among those unsheltered 
 hills. ‘To Laura, sitting by the fire in her 
 parlour, the sound of wind and rain was pleas- 
 ant. “Weather like this,” she thought, “would 
 never be allowed in London.” 
 
 The unchastened gusts that banged against 
 the side of the house and drove the smoke down 
 the chimney, and the riotous gurgling of the 
 rain in the gutters were congenial to her spirit. 
 “Hoo! You daredevil,” said the wind. ‘‘Have 
 you come out to join us?” Yet sitting there 
 with no companionship except those exciting 
 voices she was quiet and happy. 
 
 Mrs. Leak’s tea was strong Indian tea. ‘The 
 bread-and-butter was cut in thick slices, and 
 underneath it was a crocheted mat; there was 
 plum jam in a heart-shaped glass dish, and a 
 
 109 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 plate of rather heavy jam-puffs. It was not 
 quite so good as the farmhouse teas she remem- 
 bered in Somerset, but a great deal better than 
 teas at Apsley Terrace. 
 
 Tea being done with, Laura took stock of 
 her new domain. ‘The parlour was furnished 
 with a large mahogany table, four horsehair 
 chairs and a horsehair sofa, an armchair, and a 
 sideboard, rather gimcrack compared to the rest 
 of the furniture. On the walls, which were 
 painted green, hung a print of the Empress 
 Josephine and two rather scowling classical 
 landscapes with ruined temples, and volcanoes. 
 On either side of the hearth were cupboards, 
 and the fireplace was of a cottage pattern with 
 hobs, and a small oven on one side. ‘This fire- 
 place had caught Laura’s fancy when she first 
 looked at the rooms. She had stipulated with 
 Mrs. Leak that, should she so wish, she might 
 cook on it. ‘There are some things—mush- 
 rooms, for instance, or toasted cheese—which 
 can only be satisfactorily cooked by the eater. 
 Mrs. Leak had made no difficulties. She was 
 an oldish woman, sparing of her words and 
 moderate in her demands. Her husband worked 
 at the sawmill. They were childless. She 
 had never let lodgings before, but till last year 
 
 1 fe) 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 an aunt with means of her own had occupied 
 the parlour and bedroom which were now 
 Laura’s. 
 
 It did not take Laura very long to arrange 
 her belongings, for she had brought little. Soon 
 after supper, which consisted of rabbit, bread and 
 cheese, and table beer, she went upstairs to bed. 
 Moving about her small cold bedroom she sud- 
 denly noticed that the wind had fallen, and that 
 it was no longer raining. She pushed aside a 
 corner of the blind and opened the window. 
 The night air was cold and sweet, and the full 
 moon shone high overhead. The sky was 
 cloudless, lovely, and serene; a few stars 
 glistened there like drops of water about to fall. 
 For the first time she was looking at the intri- 
 cate landscape of rounded hills and scooped 
 valleys which she had chosen for learning by 
 heart. 
 
 Dark and compact, the beech-woods lay upon 
 the hills. Alighting as noiselessly as an owl, a 
 white cat sprang up on to the garden fence. It 
 glanced from side to side, ran for a yard or two 
 along the top of the fence and jumped off again, 
 going secretly on its way. Laura sighed for 
 happiness. She had no thoughts; her mind was 
 swept as clean and empty as the heavens. For 
 
 III 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 a long time she continued to lean out of the 
 window, forgetting where she was and how she 
 had come there, so unearthly was her content- 
 ment. 
 
 Nevertheless her first days at Great Mop gave 
 her little real pleasure. She wrecked them by 
 her excitement. Every morning immediately 
 after breakfast she set out to explore the coun- 
 try. She believed that by eating a large break- 
 fast she could do without lunch. ‘The days 
 were short, and she wanted to make the most 
 of them, and making the most of the days and 
 going back for lunch did not seem to her to be 
 compatible. Unfortunately, she was not used 
 to making large breakfasts, so her enthusiasm 
 was qualified by indigestion until about four 
 P.M., when both enthusiasm and indigestion 
 yielded to a faintish feeling. Then she turned 
 back, generally by road, since it was growing 
 too dark to find out footpaths, and arrived home 
 with a limp between six and seven. She knew 
 in her heart that she was not really enjoying this 
 sort of thing, but the habit of useless activity 
 was too strong to be snapped by change of scene. 
 And in the evening, as she looked at the map 
 and marked where she had been with little 
 bleeding footsteps of red ink, she was enchanted 
 
 112 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 afresh by the names and the bridle-paths, and, 
 forgetting the blistered heel and the dissatisfac- 
 tion of that day’s walk, planned a new walk 
 for the morrow. 
 
 Nearly a week had gone by before she righted 
 herself. She had made an appointment with 
 the sunset that she should see it from the top 
 of a certain hill. ‘The hill was steep, and the 
 road turned and twisted about its sides. It was 
 clear that the sunset would be at their meeting- 
 place before she was, nor would it be likely to 
 kick its heels and wait about for her. She 
 looked at the sky and walked faster. The road 
 took a new and unsuspected turn, concealed be- 
 hind the clump of trees by which she had been 
 measuring her progress up the hill. She was 
 growing more and more flustered, and at this 
 prick she: lost her temper entirely. She was 
 tired, she was miles from Great Mop, and she 
 had made a fool of herself. An abrupt beam 
 of light shot up from behind the hedge as 
 though the sun in vanishing below the horizon 
 had winked at her. “This sort of thing,”’ she 
 said aloud, “has got to be put a stop to.” She 
 sat down in the extremely comfortable ditch to 
 think. | 
 
 The shades that had dogged her steps up the 
 
 113 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 hill closed in upon her as she sat in the ditch, 
 but when she took out her map there was enough 
 light to enable her to see where the nearest inn 
 lay. It was close at hand; when she got there 
 she could just read its name on the sign. Its 
 name was The Reason Why. Entering The 
 Reason Why, she ordered tea and a conveyance 
 to drive her back to Great Mop. When she 
 left the inn it was a brilliant night of stars. 
 Outside stood a wagonette drawn by a large 
 white horse. Piled on the seat of the wagon- 
 ette were a number of waterproof rugs with 
 finger-rings on them, and these she wrapped 
 round her with elaborate care. 
 
 The drive back to Great Mop was more filled 
 with glory than anything she had ever experi- 
 enced. ‘The wagonette creaked over bare hill- 
 tops and plunged downwards into the chequered 
 darknesses of unknown winter woods. All the 
 stars shook their glittering spears overhead. 
 Turning this way and that to look at them, the 
 frost pinched her cheeks. 
 
 That evening she asked Mrs. Leak if she 
 would lend her some books. From Mrs. Leak’s 
 library she chose Mehalah, by the Rev. Sabine 
 Baring-Gould, and an anonymous work of in- 
 formation called Enquire Within Upon Every- 
 
 114 
 
sLOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 thing. “Che next morning was fine and sunny. 
 She spent it by the parlour fire, reading. When 
 she read bits of Mehalah she thought how 
 romantic it would be to live in the Essex 
 Marshes. From Enguire Within Upon Every- 
 thing she learned how gentlemen’s hats if 
 plunged in a bath of logwood will come out 
 with a dash of respectability, and that ruins are 
 best constructed of cork. During the afternoon 
 she learned other valuable facts like these, and 
 fell asleep. On the following morning she fell 
 asleep again, in a beech-wood, curled up in a 
 heap of dead leaves. After that she had no 
 more trouble. Life becomes simple if one does 
 nothing about it. Laura did nothing about any- 
 thing for days and days till Mrs. Leak said: 
 “We shall soon be having Christmas, miss.” 
 Christmas! So it had caught them all again. 
 By now the provident Caroline herself was 
 suffering the eleventh hour in Oxford Street. 
 But here even Christmas was made easy. 
 Laura spent a happy afternoon choosing 
 presents at the village shop. For Henry she 
 bought a bottle of ginger wine, a pair of leather 
 gaiters, and some highly recommended tincture 
 of sassafras for his winter cough. For Caroline 
 she bought an extensive parcel—all the shop 
 
 115 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 had, in fact—of variously coloured rug-wools, 
 and a pound’s worth of assorted stamps. For 
 Sibyl she bought some tinned fruits, some sugar- 
 biscuits, and a pink knitted bed-jacket. For 
 Fancy and Marion respectively she bought a 
 Swanee flute and a box with Ely Cathedral on 
 the lid, containing string, which Mrs. Trumpet 
 was very glad to see the last of, as it had been 
 forced upon her by a traveller, and had not hit 
 the taste of the village. To her great-nephew 
 and great-nieces she sent postal orders for one 
 guinea, and pink gauze stockings filled with tin 
 toys. “These she knew would please, for she 
 had always wanted one herself. For Dunlop 
 she bought a useful button-hook. Acquaint- 
 ances and minor relations were greeted with 
 picture postcards, either photographs of the local 
 War Memorial Hall and Institute, or a coloured 
 view of some sweet-peas with the motto: 
 “Kind Thoughts from Great Mop.” A post- 
 card of the latter kind was also enclosed with 
 each of the presents. 
 
 ‘Titus was rather more difficult to suit. But 
 by good luck she noticed two heavy glass jars 
 such as old-fashioned druggists use. “These 
 were not amongst Mrs. Trumpet’s wares—she 
 kept linen buttons in the one and horn buttons 
 
 116 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 in the other; but she was anxious to oblige such 
 a magnificent customer and quite ready to sell 
 her anything that she wanted. She was about to 
 empty out the buttons when Laura stopped her. 
 “You must keep some for your customers, Mrs. 
 ‘Trumpet. They may want to put them in 
 their Christmas puddings.” Laura was losing 
 her head a little with excitement. “But I 
 should like to send about three dozen of each 
 sort, if you can spare them. Buttons are always 
 useful.” 
 
 “Yes, miss. Shall I put in some linen thread 
 too?” 
 
 Mrs. ‘Trumpet was a stout, obliging woman. 
 She promised to do up all the parcels in thick 
 brown paper and send them off three days 
 before Christmas. As Laura stepped out of the 
 shop in triumph, she exclaimed: “Well, that’s 
 done it!” 
 
 For the life of her she could not have said 
 in what sense the words were intended. She 
 was divided between admiration for her useful 
 and well-chosen gifts and delight in affronting 
 a kind of good taste which she believed to be 
 merely self-esteem. 
 
 Although she had chosen presents with such 
 care for her relations, Laura was surprised when 
 
 117 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 counter presents arrived from them. She had 
 not thought of them as remembering her. 
 Their presents were all of a warm nature; they 
 insisted upon that bleakness and draughtiness 
 which their senders had foretold. When 
 Caroline wrote to thank Laura, she said: 
 
 “T have started to make you a nice warm 
 coverlet out of those pretty wools you sent. I 
 think it will look very cheerful and variegated. 
 I often feel quite worried to think of you upon 
 those wind-swept hills. And from all I hear 
 you have a great many woods round you, and 
 I’m afraid all the decaying leaves must make 
 the place damp.” 
 
 Heaping coals of fire was a religious occupa- 
 tion. Laura rather admired Caroline for the 
 neat turn of the wrist with which she heaped 
 these. 
 
 In spite of the general determination of her 
 family that she should feel the cold Laura lived 
 at Great Mop very comfortably. Mrs. Leak 
 was an excellent cook; she attended to her 
 lodger civilly and kindly enough, made no com- 
 ments, and showed no curiosity. At times 
 Laura felt as though she had exchanged one 
 Caroline for another. Mrs. Leak was not, 
 apparently, a religious woman. ‘There were no 
 
 118 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 texts on her walls, and when Laura asked for 
 the loan of a Bible Mrs. Leak took a little time 
 to produce it, and blew on the cover before she 
 handed it over. But like Caroline, she gave 
 the impression that her kingdom was not of 
 this world. Laura liked her, and would have 
 been glad to be upon less distant terms with her, 
 but she did not find it easy to break through 
 Mrs. Leak’s reserve. She tried this subject and 
 that, but Mrs. Leak did not begin to thaw until 
 Laura said something about black-currant tea. 
 It seemed that Mrs. Leak shared Laura’s liking 
 for distillations. “That evening she remarked 
 that the table-beer was of her own brewing, and 
 lingered a while with the folded cloth in her 
 hand to explain the recipe. After that Laura 
 was given every evening a glass of home-made 
 wine: dandelion, cowslip, elderberry, ashkey, 
 or mangold. By her appreciation and her in- 
 quiries she entrapped Mrs. Leak into pausing 
 longer and longer before she carried away the 
 supper-tray. Before January was out it had 
 become an established thing that after placing 
 the bedroom candlestick on the cleared table 
 Mrs. Leak would sit down and talk for half an 
 hour or so. 
 
 ‘There was an indoor pleasantness about these 
 
 119 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 times. Through the wall came the sound of 
 Mr. Leak snoring in the kitchen. ‘The two 
 women sat by the fire, tilting their glasses and 
 drinking in small peaceful sips. The lamp- 
 light shone upon the tidy room and the polished 
 table, lighting topaz in the dandelion wine, 
 spilling pools of crimson through the flanks of 
 the bottle of plum gin. It shone on the con- 
 tented drinkers, and threw their large, close-at- 
 hand shadows upon the wall. When Mrs. 
 Leak smoothed her apron the shadow solemni- 
 fied the gesture as though she were moulding 
 an universe. lLaura’s nose and chin were de- 
 fined as sharply as the peaks of a holly leaf. 
 
 Mrs. Leak did most of the talking. She 
 talked well. She knew a great deal about 
 everybody, and she was not content to quit a 
 character until she had brought it to life for 
 her listener. 
 
 Mrs. Leak’s favorite subject was the Misses 
 Larpent, Miss Minnie and Miss Jane. Miss 
 Minnie was seventy-three, Miss Jane four years 
 younger. Neither of them had known a day’s 
 illness, nor any bodily infirmity, nor any relent- 
 ing of their faculties. “They would live for 
 many years yet, if only to thwart their de- 
 bauched middle-aged nephew, the heir to the 
 
 I20 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 estate. Perhaps Miss Willowes had seen Laz- 
 zard Court on one of her walks? Yes, Laura 
 had seen it, looking down from a hill-top—the 
 park where sheep were penned among the 
 grouped chestnut trees, the long white house 
 with its expressionless fagade—and had heard 
 the stable-clock striking a deserted noon. 
 
 The drive of Lazzard Court was five miles 
 long from end to end. ‘The house had four- 
 teen principal bedrooms and a suite for Royalty. 
 Mrs. Leak had been in service at Lazzard 
 Court before her marriage; she knew the house 
 inside and out, and described it to Laura till 
 Laura felt that there was not one of the four- 
 teen principal bedrooms which she did not 
 know. ‘The blue room, the buff room, the bal- 
 cony room, the needle-work room—she had 
 slept in them all. Nay, she had awakened in 
 the Royal bed, and pulling aside the red 
 damask curtains had looked to the window to 
 see the sun shining upon the tulip tree. 
 
 No visitors slept in the stately bedrooms now, 
 Lazzard Court was very quiet. People in the 
 villages, said Mrs. Leak coldly, called Miss 
 Minnie and Miss Jane two old screws. Mrs. 
 _ Leak knew better. ‘The old ladies spent lordily 
 upon their pleasures, and economised elsewhere 
 
 I2I 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 that they might be able to do so. When they 
 invited the Bishop to lunch and gave him stewed 
 rabbit, blackberry pudding, and the best peaches 
 and Madeira that his Lordship was likely to 
 taste in his life, he fared no worse and no better 
 than they fared themselves. Lazzard Court 
 was famous for its racing-stable. ‘To the up- 
 keep of this all meaner luxuries were sacrificed 
 —suitable bonnets, suitable subscriptions, bed- 
 room fires, salmon and cucumber. But the 
 stable-yard was like the forecourt of a temple. 
 Every morning after breakfast Miss Jane 
 would go round the stables and feel the horses’ 
 legs, her gnarled old hand with its diamond 
 ring slipping over the satin coat. 
 
 Nothing escaped the sisters. ‘Che dairy, the 
 laundry, the glass-houses, the poultry-yard, all 
 were scrutinised. If any servant were found 
 lacking he or she was called before Miss Min- 
 nie in the Justice Room. Mrs. Leak had never 
 suffered such an interview, but she had seen 
 others come away, white-faced, or weeping 
 with apron thrown over head. Even the cof- 
 fins were made on the estate. Each sister had 
 chosen her elm and had watched it felled, with 
 sharp words for the woodman when he aimed 
 amiss. 
 
 122 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 When Mrs. Leak had given the last touches 
 to Miss Minnie and Miss Jane, she made 
 Laura’s flesh creep with the story of the doctor 
 who took the new house up on the hill. He 
 had been a famous doctor in London, but when 
 he came to Great Mop no one would have any- 
 thing to do with him. It was said he came as 
 an interloper, watching for old Dr. Halley to 
 die that he might step into his shoes. He grew 
 more and more morose in his lonely house, soon 
 the villagers said he drank; at last came the 
 morning when he and his wife were found 
 dead. He had shot her and then himself, so it 
 appeared, and the verdict at the inquest was of 
 Insanity. ‘The chief witnesses were another 
 London doctor, a great man for the brain, who 
 had advised his friend to lead a peaceful coun- 
 try life; and the maidservant, who had heard 
 ranting talk and cries late one evening, and ran 
 out of the house in terror, banging the door be- 
 hind her, to spend the night with her mother in 
 the village. 
 
 After the doctor, Mrs. Leak called up Mr. 
 Jones the clergyman. Laura had seen his 
 white beard browsing among the tombs. He 
 looked like a blessed goat tethered on hallowed 
 grass. He lived alone with his books of Latin 
 
 123 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 and Hebrew and his tame owl which he tried te 
 persuade to sleep in his bedroom. He had dis- 
 missed red-haired Emily, the sexton’s niece, for 
 pouring hot water on a mouse. Emily had 
 heated the water with the kindest intentions, 
 but she was dismissed nevertheless. Mrs. Leak 
 made much of this incident, for it was Mr. 
 Jones’s only act of authority. In all other ad- 
 ministrations he was guided by Mr. Gurdon, the 
 clerk. 
 
 Mr. Gurdon’s beard was red and curly 
 (Laura knew him by sight also). Fiery down 
 covered his cheeks, his eyes were small and 
 truculent, and he lived in a small surprised 
 cottage near the church. Every morning he 
 walked forth to the Rectory to issue his orders 
 for the day—this old woman was to be visited 
 with soup, that young one with wrath; and 
 more manure should be ordered for the Rectory 
 cabbages. For Mr. Gurdon was Mr. Jones’s 
 gardener, as well as his clerk. 
 
 Mr. Gurdon had even usurped the clergy- 
 man’s perquisite of quarrelling with the organ- 
 ist. Henry Perry was the organist. He had 
 lost one leg and three fingers in a bus accident, 
 so there was scarcely any other profession he 
 could have taken up. And he had always been 
 
 ere 
 
LOLLY |) WiILLOW:ES 
 
 fond of playing tunes, for his mother, who was 
 a superior widow, had a piano at Rose Cottage. 
 
 Mr. Gurdon said that Henry Perry encour- 
 aged the choir boys to laugh at him. After 
 church he used to hide behind a yew tree to 
 pounce out upon any choir boys who desecrated 
 the graves by leaping over them. When he 
 caught them he pinched them. Pinches are 
 silent: they can be made use of in sacred places 
 where smacking would be irreverent. One 
 summer Mr. Gurdon told Mr. Jones to forbid 
 the choir treat. ‘[hree days later some of the 
 boys were playing with a tricycle. ‘They al- 
 lowed it to get out of control, and it began to 
 run downhill. At the bottom of the hill was a 
 sharp turn in the road, and Mr. Gurdon’s cot- 
 tage. The tricycle came faster and faster and 
 crashed through the fence into Mr. Gurdon, 
 who was attending to his lettuces and had his 
 back turned. ‘The boys giggled and ran away. 
 Their mothers did not take the affair so lightly. 
 ‘That evening Mr. Gurdon received a large 
 seed-cake, two dozen fresh eggs, a packet of 
 cigarettes, and other appeasing gifts. Next 
 
 Sunday Mr. Jones in his kind tenor voice an-- : 
 
 nounced that a member of the congregation 
 wished to return thanks for mercies lately re- 
 125 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 ceived. Mr. Gurdon turned round in his place 
 and glared at the choir boys. | 
 
 Much as he disliked Henry Perry, Mr. 
 Gurdon had disliked the doctor from London 
 even more. ‘The doctor had come upon him 
 frightening an old woman in a field, and had 
 called him a damned bully and a hypocrite. 
 Mr. Gurdon had cursed him back, and swore 
 to be even with him. ‘The old woman bore 
 her defender no better will. She talked in a 
 surly way about her aunt, who was a gipsy and 
 able to afflict people with lice by just looking 
 at them. 
 
 Laura did not hear this story from Mrs. 
 Leak. It was told her some time after by 
 Mrs. Trumpet. Mrs. Trumpet hated Mr. 
 Gurdon, though she was very civil to him when 
 he came into the shop. Few people in the vil- 
 lage liked Mr. Gurdon, but he commanded a 
 great deal of politeness. Red and burly and to 
 be feared, the clerk reminded Laura of a red 
 bull belonging to the farmer. In one respect 
 he was unlike the bull: Mr. Gurdon was a 
 very respectable man. 
 
 Mrs. Leak also told Laura about Mr. and 
 Mrs. Ward, who kept the Lamb and Flag; 
 about Miss Carloe the dressmaker, who fed a 
 
 126 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 pet hedgehog on bread-and-milk; and about fat 
 Mrs. Garland, who Jet lodgings in the summer 
 and was always so down at heel and jolly. 
 Although she knew so much about her neigh- 
 bours, Mrs. Leak was not a sociable woman. 
 ‘The Misses Larpent, the dead doctor, Mr. 
 Jones, Mr. Gurdon, and Miss Carloe—she 
 called them up and caused them to pass before 
 Laura, but in a dispassionate way, rather like 
 the Witch of Endor calling up old Samuel. 
 Nor was Great Mop a sociable village, at any 
 rate, compared with the villages which Laura 
 had known as a girl. Never had she seen so 
 little dropping in, leaning over fences, daw- 
 dling at the shop or in the churchyard. Little 
 laughter came from the taproom of the Lamb 
 and Flag. Once or twice she glanced in at the 
 window as she passed by and saw the men — 
 within sitting silent and abstracted with their 
 mugs before them. Even the _bell-ringers 
 when they had finished their practice broke up 
 with scant adieus, and went silently on their 
 way. She had never met country people like 
 these before. Nor had she ever known a vil- 
 lage that kept such late hours. Lights were 
 burning in the cottages till one and two in the 
 morning,.and she had been awakened at later 
 127 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 hours than those by the sound of passing voices. 
 She. could hear quite distinctly, for her window 
 was open and faced upon the village street. 
 She heard Miss Carloe say complainingly: . 
 “Tt’s all very well for you young ones. But 
 my old bones ache so, it’s a wonder how I get 
 home!” Then she heard the voice of red- 
 haired Emily say: “No bones so nimble as old 
 bones, Miss Carloe, when it comes to—” and 
 then a voice unknown to Laura said ‘‘Hush’’; 
 and she heard no more, for a cock crew. An- 
 other night, some time after this, she heard 
 some one playing a mouth-organ. ‘The music 
 came from far off, it sounded almost as if it 
 were being played out of doors. She lit a 
 candle and looked at her watch—it was half- 
 past three. She got out of bed and listened at 
 the window; it was a dark night, and the hills 
 rose up like ascreen. ‘Ihe noise of the mouth- 
 organ came wavering and veering on the wind. 
 A drunk man, perhaps? Yet what drunk man 
 would play on so steadily? She lay awake for 
 an hour or more, half puzzled, half lulled by 
 the strange music, that never stopped, that never 
 varied, that seemed to have become part of the - 
 air. 
 
 Next day she asked Mrs. Leak what this 
 strange music could be. Mrs. Leak said that 
 
 128 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 young Billy Thomas was distracted with tooth- 
 ache. He could not sleep, and played for hours 
 nightly upon his mouth-organ to divert himself 
 from the pain. On Wednesday the tooth- 
 drawer would come to Barleighs, and young 
 Billy Thomas would be put out of his agony. 
 Laura was sorry for the sufferer, but she ad- 
 mired the circumstances. ‘The highest flights 
 of her imagination had not risen to more than 
 a benighted drunk. Young Billy Thomas had 
 a finer invention than she. 
 
 After a few months she left off speculating 
 about the villagers. She admitted that there 
 was something about them which she could not 
 fathom, but she was content to remain outside 
 the secret, whatever it was. She had not come 
 to Great Mop to concern herself with the hearts 
 of men. Let her stray up the valleys, and 
 rest in the leafless woods that looked so 
 warm with their core of fallen red leaves, and 
 find out her own secret, if she had one; 
 with autumn it might come back to question 
 her. She wondered. She thought not. She 
 felt that nothing could ever again disturb her 
 peace. Wherever she strayed the hills folded 
 themselves round her like the fingers of a 
 hand. 
 
 About this time she did an odd thing. In 
 
 129 
 
LO ke WL EON Wiis 
 
 her wanderings she had found a disused well. 
 It was sunk at the side of a green lane, and 
 grass and bushes had grown up around its low 
 rim, almost to conceal it; the wooden frame 
 was broken and mouldered, ropes and pulleys 
 had long ago been taken away, and the water 
 was sunk far down, only distinguishable as an 
 uncertain reflection of the sky. Here, one eve- 
 ning, she brought her guide-book and her map. 
 Pushing aside the bushes she sat down upon the 
 low rim of the well. It was a still, mild eve- 
 ning towards the end of February, the birds 
 were singing, there was a smell of growth in 
 the air, the light lingered in the fields as though 
 it were glad to linger. Looking into the well 
 she watched the reflected sky grow dimmer; 
 and when she raised her eyes the gathering 
 darkness of the landscape surprised her. ‘The 
 time had come. She took the guide-book and 
 the map and threw them in. 
 
 She heard the disturbed water sidling against 
 the walls of the well. She scarcely knew what 
 she had done, but she knew that she had done 
 rightly, whether it was that she had sacrificed 
 to the place, or had cast herself upon its mer- 
 cies—content henceforth to know no more of ~ 
 it than did its own children. 
 
 130 
 
LOLLY WiLLoweEs 
 
 As she reached the village she saw a group 
 of women standing by the milestone. ‘They 
 were silent and abstracted as usual. When she 
 greeted them they returned her greeting, but 
 they said nothing among themselves. After 
 she had gone by they turned as of one accord 
 and began to walk up the field path towards 
 the wood. ‘They were going to gather fuel, 
 she supposed... To-night their demeanour did 
 not strike her as odd. She felt at one with 
 them, an inhabitant like themselves, and she 
 would gladly have gone with them up towards 
 the wood. If they were different from other 
 people, why shouldn’t they be? They saw 
 little of the world. Great Mop stood by itself 
 at the head of the valley, five miles from the 
 main road, and cut off by the hills from the 
 other villages. It had a name for being differ- 
 ent from other places. “The man who had 
 driven Laura home from The Reason Why had 
 said: “It’s not often that a wagonette is seen 
 at Great Mop. It’s an out-of-the-way place, 
 if ever there was one. ‘There’s not such an- 
 other village in Buckinghamshire for out-of- 
 the-way-ness. Well may it be called Great 
 Mop, for there’s never a Little Mop that [ve 
 heard of.” 
 
 131 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 People so secluded as the inhabitants of Great 
 Mop would naturally be rather silent, and keep. 
 themselves close. So Laura thought, and Mr. 
 Saunter was of the same opinion. 
 
 Mr. Saunter’s words had weight, for he 
 spoke seldom. He was a serious, brown young 
 man, who after the war had refused to go back 
 to his bank in Birmingham. He lived in a 
 wooden hut which he had put up with his own 
 hands, and kept a poultry-farm. 
 
 Laura first met Mr. Saunter when she was 
 out walking, early one darkish, wet, January 
 morning. ‘The lane was muddy; she picked 
 her way, her eyes to the ground. She did not 
 notice Mr. Saunter until she was quite close to 
 him. He was standing bareheaded in the rain. 
 His look was sad and gentle, it reflected the 
 mood of the weather, and several dead white 
 hens dangled from his hands. Laura ex- 
 claimed, softly, apologetically. This young 
 man was so perfectly of a piece with his sur- 
 roundings that she felt herself to be an in- 
 truder. She was about to turn back when his 
 glance moved slowly towards her. “Badger,” 
 he said; and smiled in an explanatory fashion. | 
 Laura knew at once that he had been careless 
 and had left the henhouse door unfastened. 
 
 132 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 She took pains that no shade of blame should 
 mix itself with her condolences. She did not 
 even blame the badger. She knew that this 
 was a moment for nothing but kind words, and 
 not too many of them. 
 
 Mr. Saunter was grateful. He invited her 
 to come and see his birds. Side by side they 
 turned in silence through a field gate and 
 walked into Mr. Saunter’s field. Bright birds 
 were on the sodden grass. As he went by they | 
 hurried into their pens, expecting to be fed. 
 “If you would care to come in,” said Mr. 
 Saunter, “I should like to make you a cup of 
 teas” | 
 
 Mr. Saunter’s living-room was very untidy 
 and homelike. A basket of stockings lay on 
 the table. Laura wondered if she might offer 
 to help Mr. Saunter with his mending. But 
 after he had made the tea, he took up a stocking 
 and began to darn it. He darned much better 
 than she did. 
 
 As she went home again she fell to wonder- 
 ing what animal Mr. Saunter resembled. But 
 in the end she decided that he resembled no ani- 
 mal except man. ‘Till now, Laura had rejected 
 the saying that man is the noblest work of na- 
 ture. Half an hour with Mr. Saunter showed 
 
 133 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 her that the saying was true. So had Adam 
 been the noblest work of nature, when he 
 walked out among the beasts, sole overseer of 
 the garden, intact, with all his ribs about him, 
 his equilibrium as yet untroubled by Eve. She 
 had misunderstood the saying merely because 
 she had not happened to meet a man before. 
 Perhaps, like other noble works, man is rare. 
 Perhaps there is only one of him at a time: 
 first Adam; now Mr. Saunter. If that were 
 the case, she was lucky to have met him. ‘This 
 also was the result of coming to Great Mop. 
 
 So much did Mr. Saunter remind Laura of 
 Adam that he made her feel like Eve—for she 
 was petitioned by an unladylike curiosity. She 
 asked Mrs. Leak about him. Mrs. Leak could 
 tell her nothing that was not already known to 
 her, except that young Billy Thomas went up 
 there every day on his bicycle to lend Mr. 
 Saunter a hand. Laura would not stoop to 
 question young Billy Thomas. She fought 
 against her curiosity, and the spring came to her 
 aid. , 
 
 This new year was changing her whole con- 
 ception of spring. She had thought of it as a 
 denial of winter, a green spur that thrust 
 through a tyrant’s rusty armour. Now she 
 
 134 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 saw it as something filial, gently unlacing the 
 helm of the old warrior and comforting his 
 rough cheek. In February came a spell of fine 
 weather. She spent whole days sitting in the 
 woods, where the wood-pigeons moaned for 
 pleasure on the boughs. Sometimes two cock- 
 birds would tumble together in mid air, shriek- 
 ing, and buffeting with their wings, and then 
 would fly back to the quivering boughs and 
 nurse the air into peace again. All round her 
 the sap was rising up. She laid her cheek 
 against a tree and shut her eyes to listen. She 
 expected to hear the tree drumming like a 
 telegraph pole. 
 
 It was so warm in the woods that she forgot 
 that she sat there for shelter. But though the 
 wind blew lightly, it blew from the east. In 
 March the wind went round to the south-west. 
 It brought rain. ‘The bright, cold fields were 
 dimmed and warm to walk in now. Like em- 
 bers the wet beech-leaves smouldered in the 
 woods. 
 
 All one day the wind had risen, and late in 
 the evening it called her out. She went up to 
 the top of Cubbey Ridge, past the ruined wind- 
 mill that clattered with its torn sails. When 
 she had come to the top of the Ridge she 
 
 N39 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 stopped, with difficulty holding herself upright. 
 She felt the wind swoop down close to the 
 earth. [he moon was out hunting overhead, 
 her pack of black and white hounds ranged over 
 the sky. Moon and wind and clouds hunted an 
 invisible quarry. “The wind routed through the 
 woods. Laura from the hill-top heard the dif- 
 ferent voices. “The spent gusts left the beech- 
 hangers throbbing like sea caverns through 
 which the wave had passed; the fir plantation 
 seemed to chant some never-ending rune. 
 Listening to these voices, another voice came 
 to her ear—the far-off pulsation of a goods 
 train labouring up a steep cutting. It was 
 scarcely audible, more perceptible as feeling 
 than as sound, but by its regularity it dominated 
 all the other voices. It seemed to come nearer 
 and nearer, to inform her like the drumming 
 of blood in her ears. She began to feel de- 
 fenceless, exposed to the possibility of an over- 
 whelming terror. She listened intently, trying 
 not to think. ‘Though the noise came from an 
 ordinary goods train, no amount of reasoning 
 could stave off this terror. She must yield her- 
 self, yield up all her attention, if she would 
 escape. It was a wicked sound. It expressed 
 something eternally outcast and reprobated by 
 
 136 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 _ man, stealthily trafficking by night, unseen in 
 the dark clefts of the hills. Loud, separate, 
 and abrupt, each pant of the engine trampled 
 down her wits. The wind and the moon and 
 the ranging cloud pack were not the only 
 hunters abroad that night: something else was 
 hunting among the hills, hunting slowly, de- 
 liberately, sure of its quarry. 
 
 Suddenly she remembered the goods yard at 
 Paddington, and all her thoughts slid together 
 again like a pack of hounds that have picked up 
 the scent. ‘They streamed faster and faster; 
 she clenched her hands and prayed as when a 
 child she had prayed in the hunting-field. 
 
 - In the goods yard at Paddington she had 
 almost pounced on the clue, the clue to the 
 secret country of her mind. ‘The country was 
 desolate and half-lit, and she walked there 
 alone, mistress of it, and mistress, too, of the 
 terror that roamed over the blank fields and 
 haunted round her. Here was country just so 
 desolate and half-lt. She was alone, just as in 
 her dreams, and the terror had come to keep 
 her company, and crouched by her side, half 
 in fawning, half in readiness to pounce. All 
 this because of a goods train that laboured up a 
 cutting. What was this cabal of darkness, 
 
 ¥37 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 suborning her own imagination to plot against 
 her! What were these iron hunters doing near 
 mournful, ever-weeping Paddington? 
 
 “Now! Now!” said the moon, and plunged 
 towards her through the clouds. 
 
 Baffled, she stared back at the moon and 
 shook her head. For a moment it had seemed 
 as though the clue were found, but it had slid 
 through her hands again. The train had 
 reached the top of the cutting, with a shriek of 
 delight it began to pour itself downhill. She 
 smiled. It amused’ her to suppose it loaded 
 with cabbages. Arrived at Paddington, the 
 cabbages would be diverted to Covent Garden. 
 But inevitably, and with all the augustness of 
 due course, they would reach their bourne at 
 Apsley Terrace. “They would shed all their 
 midnight devilry in the pot, and be served up 
 to Henry and Caroline very pure and vegetable. 
 “Lovely! lovely!” she said, and began to 
 descend the hill, for the night was cold. 
 Though her secret had eluded her again, she 
 did not mind. She knew that this time she had 
 come nearer to catching it than ever before. 
 If it were attainable she would run it to earth 
 here, sooner or later. Great Mop was the 
 likeliest place to find it. 
 
 138 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 The village was in darkness; it had gone to 
 bed early, as good villages should. Only Miss 
 Carloe’s window was alight. Kind Miss Car- 
 loe, she would sit up till all hours tempting her 
 hedgehog with bread-and-milk. Hedgehogs 
 are nocturnal animals; they go out for walks 
 at night, grunting, and shoving out their black 
 snouts. “Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed; 
 Thrice, and once the hedgepig whined. Har- 
 per cries, ‘’ Tis time, ’tis time,’”? She found 
 the key under the half-brick, and let herself 
 in very quietly. Only sleep sat up for her, 
 Waiting in the hushed house. Sleep took her 
 by the hand, and convoyed her up the narrow 
 stairs. She fell asleep almost as her head 
 touched the pillow. 
 
 By the next day all this seemed very ordi- 
 nary. She had gone out on a windy night and 
 heard a goods train. “There was nothing re- 
 markable in that. It would have been a con- 
 siderable adventure in London, but it was 
 nothing in the Chilterns. Yet she retained an 
 odd feeling of respect for what had happened, 
 as though it had laid some command upon her 
 that waited to be interpreted and obeyed. She 
 thought it over, and tried to make sense of it. 
 If it pointed to anything it pointed to Padding- 
 
 139 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 ton. She did what she could; she wrote and 
 invited Caroline to spend a day at Great Mop. 
 She did not suppose that this was the right in- 
 terpretation, but she could think of no other. 
 
 All the birds were singing as Laura went 
 down the lane to meet Caroline’s car. It was 
 almost like summer, nothing could be more 
 fortunate, Caroline was dressed in sensible 
 tweeds. “It was raining when I left Lon- 
 don,” she said, and glanced severely at Laura’s 
 cotton gown. 
 
 “Was it?” said Laura. “It hasn’t rained 
 here.” She stopped. She looked carefully at 
 the blue sky. “There was not a cloud to be 
 seen. “Perhaps it will rain later on,” she 
 added. Caroline also looked at the sky, and 
 said: “Probably.” 
 
 Conversation was a little difficult, for Laura 
 did not know how much she was still in dis- 
 grace. She asked after everybody in a rather 
 guilty voice, and heard how emphatically they 
 all throve, and what a pleasant, cheerful winter 
 they had all spent. After that came the dis- 
 tance from Wickendon and the hour of de- 
 parture. In planning the conduct of the day, 
 Laura had decided to keep the church for after 
 lunch. Before lunch she would show Caro- 
 
 140 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 line the view. She had vaguely allotted an 
 hour and a half to the view, but it took scarcely 
 twenty minutes. At least, that was the time 
 it took walking up to the windmill and down 
 again. [he view had taken no time at all. 
 It was a clear day, and everything that could 
 be seen was perceptible at the first glance. 
 Caroline was so stoutly equipped for country 
 walking that Laura had not the heart to drag 
 her up another hill. ‘They visited the church 
 instead. “The church was more successful. 
 Caroline sank on her knees and prayed. ‘This 
 gave Laura an opportunity to look round, for 
 she had not been inside the church before. It 
 was extremely narrow, and had windows upon 
 the south side only, so that it looked like a holy 
 corridor. Caroline prayed for some time, and 
 Laura made the most of it. Presently she was 
 
 - able to lead Caroline down the corridor, mur- 
 
 muring: “That window was presented in 1901. 
 There is rather a nice brass in this corner. 
 That bit of carving is old, it is the Wise and 
 the Foolish Virgins. ‘Take care of the step.” 
 
 One foolish Virgin pleased Laura as being 
 particularly lifelike. She stood a little apart 
 from the group, holding a flask close to her 
 ear, and shaking it. During lunch Laura felt 
 
 I4I 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 that her stock of oil, too, was running very 
 low. But it was providentially renewed, for 
 soon after lunch a perfect stranger fell off a 
 bicycle just outside Mrs. Leak’s door and 
 sprained her ankle. Laura and Caroline leapt 
 up to succour her, and then there was a great 
 deal of cold compress and hot tea and anima- 
 tion. The perfect stranger was a Secretary to 
 a Guild. She asked Caroline if she did not 
 think Great Mop a delightful nook, and Caro- 
 line cordially agreed. “They went on discover- 
 ing Committees in common till tea-time, and 
 soon after went off together in Caroline’s car. 
 Just as Caroline stepped into the car she asked 
 Laura if she had met any nice people in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 “No. There aren’t any nice people,”’ said 
 Laura. Wondering if the bicycle would stay 
 like that, twined so casually round the driver’s 
 neck, she had released her attention one minute 
 too soon. 
 
 As far as she knew this was her only slip 
 throughout the day. It was a pity. But 
 Caroline would soon forget it; she might not 
 even have heard it, for the Secretary was 
 talking loudly about Homes of Rest at the 
 same moment. Still, it was a pity. She might 
 
 142 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 have remembered Mr. Saunter, though perhaps 
 she could not have explained him satisfactorily 
 in the time. 
 
 She turned and walked slowly through the 
 fields towards the poultry-farm. She could 
 not settle down to complete solitude so soon 
 after Caroline’s departure. She would decline 
 gradually, using Mr. Saunter as an intermedi- 
 ate step. He was feeding his poultry, going 
 from pen to pen with a zinc wheelbarrow and 
 a large wooden spoon. ‘The birds flew round 
 him; he had continually to stop and fend them 
 off like a swarm of large midges. Sometimes 
 he would grasp a specially bothering bird and 
 throw it back into the pen as though it were a 
 ball. She leant on the gate and watched him. 
 This young man who had been a _ bank-clerk 
 and a soldier walked with the easy, slow strides 
 of a born countryman; he seemed to possess 
 the earth with each step. No doubt but he 
 was like Adam. And she, watching him from 
 above—for the field sloped down from the gate 
 to the pens—was like God. Did God, after 
 casting out the rebel angels and before settling 
 down to the peace of a heaven unpeopled of 
 contradiction, use Adam as an intermediate 
 step? 
 
 143 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 On his way back to the hut, Mr. Saunter 
 noticed Laura. He came up and leant on his 
 side of the gate. Though the sun had gone 
 down, the air was still warm, and a disem- 
 bodied daylight seemed to weigh upon the land- 
 scape like a weight of sleep. The birds which 
 had sung all day now sang louder than ever. 
 
 “Hasn’t it been a glorious day?” said Mr. 
 Saunter. 
 
 “T have had my sister-in-law down,” Laura 
 answered. “She lives in London.” 
 
 “My people,” said Mr. Saunter, “all live in 
 the Midlands.” . 
 “Or in Australia,” he added after a pause. 
 
 Mr. Saunter, seen from above, walking 
 among his flocks and herds—for even hens 
 seemed ennobled into something Biblical by 
 their relation to him—was an impressive figure. 
 Mr. Saunter leaning on the gate was a pleas- 
 ant, unaffected young man enough, but no more. 
 Quitting him, Laura soon forgot him as com- 
 pletely as she had forgotten Caroline. Caro- 
 line was a tedious bluebottle; Mr. Saunter a 
 gentle, furry brown moth; but she could brush 
 off one as easily as the other. 
 
 Laura even forgot that she had invited the 
 moth to settle again; to come to tea. It was 
 
 144 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 only by chance that she had stayed indoors that 
 afternoon, making currant scones. “To amuse 
 herself she had cut the dough into likenesses of 
 the village people. Curious developments took 
 place in the baking. Miss Carloe’s hedgehog 
 _ had swelled until it was almost as large as its 
 mistress. “The dough had run into it, leaving 
 a great hole in Miss Carloe’s side. Mr. Jones 
 had a lump on his back, as though he were 
 carrying the Black Dog in a bag; and a fancy 
 portrait of Miss Larpent in her elegant youth 
 and a tight-fitting sweeping amazon had 
 warped and twisted until it was more like a 
 enarled thorn tree than a woman. 
 
 Laura felt slightly ashamed of her freak. 
 It was unkind to play these tricks with her 
 neighbours’ bodies. But Mr. Saunter ate the 
 strange shapes without comment, quietly split- 
 ting open the villagers and buttering them. 
 He told her that he would soon lose the services 
 of young Billy Thomas, who was going to 
 Lazzard Court as a footman. 
 
 “I shouldn’t think young Billy Thomas 
 would make much of a footman,” said Laura. 
 
 “I don’t know,” he answered consideringly. 
 ““He’s very good at standing still.” 
 
 Laura had brought her sensitive conscience 
 
 145 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 into the country with her, just as she had 
 brought her umbrella, though so far she had 
 not remembered to use either. Now the con- 
 science gave signs of life. Mr. Saunter was so 
 nice, and had eaten up those derisive scones, in- 
 nocently under the impression that they had 
 been prepared for him; he had come with his 
 gift of eggs, all kindness and forethought 
 while she had forgotten his existence; and now 
 he was getting up to go, thanking her and 
 afraid that he had stayed too long. She had 
 acted unworthily by this young man, so digni- 
 fied and unassuming; she must do something to 
 repair the slight she had put upon him in her 
 own mind. She offered herself as a substitute 
 for young Billy Thomas until Mr. Saunter 
 could find some one else. 
 
 “TI don’t know anything about hens,” she 
 admitted. “But I am fond of animals, and I 
 am very obedient.” 
 
 It was agreed that she might go on the fol- 
 lowing day to help him with the trap-nesting, 
 and see how she liked it. 
 
 At first Mr. Saunter would not allow her to 
 do more than walk round with him upon planks 
 specially put down to save her from the muddy 
 places, pencil the eggs, and drink tea after- 
 
 146 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 wards. But she came so punctually and 
 showed such eagerness that as time went on she 
 persuaded him into allowing her a considerable 
 share in the work. 
 
 ‘There was much to do, for it was a busy 
 time of year. “The incubators had fulfilled 
 their time; Laura learnt how to lift out the 
 newly-hatched chicks, damp, almost lifeless 
 from their birth-throes, and pack them into 
 baskets. A few hours after the chicks were 
 lump and fluffy. They looked like bunches of 
 primroses in the moss-lined baskets. 
 
 Besides mothering his chicks Mr. Saunter 
 was busy with a great re-housing of the older 
 birds. [his was carried out after sundown, 
 for the birds were sleepy then, and easier to 
 deal with. If moved by day they soon re- 
 volted, and went back to their old pens. Even 
 as it was there were always a few sticklers, 
 roosting uncomfortably among the newcomers, 
 or standing disconsolately before their old 
 homes, closed against them. 
 
 Laura liked this evening round best of all. 
 The April twilights were marvellously young 
 and still. A slender moon soared in the green 
 sky; the thick spring grass was heavy with dew, 
 and the earth darkened about her feet while 
 
 147 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 overhead it still seemed quite light. Mr. 
 Saunter would disappear into the henhouse, a 
 protesting squawking and scuffing would be 
 heard; then he would emerge with hens under 
 either arm. He showed Laura how to carry 
 them, two at a time, their breasts in her hands, 
 their wings held fast between her arm and her 
 side. She would tickle the warm breasts, warm 
 and surprisingly bony with quills under the soft 
 plumage, and make soothing noises. 
 
 At first she felt nervous with the strange 
 burden, so meek and inanimate one moment, so 
 shrewish the next, struggling and beating with 
 strong freed wings. However many birds Mr. 
 Saunders might be carrying, he was always able 
 to relieve her of hers. Immediately the terma- 
 gant would subside, tamed by the large sure 
 grasp, meek as a dove, with rigid dangling legs, 
 and head turning sadly from side to side. 
 
 Laura never became as clever with the birds 
 as Mr. Saunter. But when she had overcome 
 her nervousness she managed them well enough 
 to give her a great deal of pleasure. They 
 nestled against her, held fast in the crook of 
 her arm, while her fingers probed among the 
 soft feathers and rigid quills of their breasts. 
 She liked to feel their acquiescence, their de- 
 
 148 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 pendence upon her. She felt wise and potent. 
 She remembered the henwife in the fairy-tales, 
 she understood now why kings and queens 
 resorted to the henwife in their difficulties. 
 The henwife held their destinies in the crook 
 of her arm, and hatched the future in her 
 apron. She was sister to the spaewife, and 
 close cousin to the witch, but she practised her 
 art under cover of henwifery; she was not, like 
 her sister and her cousin, a professional. She 
 lived unassumingly at the bottom of the king’s 
 garden, wearing a large white apron and very 
 possibly her husband’s cloth cap; and when she 
 saw the king and queen coming down the 
 gravel path she curtseyed reverentially, and pre- 
 tended it was the eggs they had come about. 
 She was easier of approach than the spaewife, 
 who sat on a creepie and stared at the smoulder- 
 ing peats till her eyes were red and unseeing; 
 or the witch, who lived alone in the wood, her 
 cottage window all grown over with brambles. 
 But though she kept up this pretence of homeli- 
 ness she was not inferior in skill to the profes- 
 sionals. Even the pretence of homeliness was 
 not quite so homely as it might seem. Laura 
 knew that the Russian witches live in small 
 huts mounted upon three giant hens’ legs, all 
 
 149 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 yellow and scaly. The legs can go; when the 
 witch desires to move her dwelling the legs 
 stalk through the forest, clattering against the 
 trees, and printing long scars upon the snow. 
 
 Following Mr. Saunter up and down be- 
 tween the pens, Laura almost forgot where and 
 who she was, so completely had she merged 
 her personality into the henwife’s. She walked 
 back along the rutted track and down the steep 
 lane as obliviously as though she were flitting 
 home on a broomstick. All through April she 
 helped Mr. Saunter. They were both sorry 
 when a new boy applied for the job and her 
 duties came to an end. She knew no more of 
 Mr. Saunter at the close of this association than 
 she had known at its beginning. It could 
 scarcely be said even that she lked him any 
 better, for from their first meeting she had 
 liked him extremely. ‘Time had assured the 
 hiking, and that was all. So well assured was 
 it, that she felt perfectly free to wander away 
 and forget him once more, certain of finding 
 him as likeable and well liked as before when- 
 ever she might choose to return. 
 
 During her first months at Great Mop the 
 moods of the winter landscape and the renew- 
 ing of spring had taken such hold of her imagi- 
 
 150 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 nation that she thought no season could be more 
 various and lovely. She had even written a 
 slightly precious letter to Titus—for somehow 
 correspondence with Titus was. always rather 
 attentive—declaring her belief that the cult of 
 the summer months was a piece of cockney ob- 
 tuseness, a taste for sweet things, and a prefer- 
 ence for dry grass to strew their egg-shells 
 upon. But with the first summer days and the 
 first cowslips she learnt better. She had known 
 that there would be cowslips in May; from the 
 day she first thought of Great Mop she had 
 promised them to herself. She had meant to 
 find them early and watch the yellow blossoms 
 unfolding upon the milky green stems. But 
 they were beforehand with her, or she had 
 watched the wrong fields. _When she walked 
 into the meadow it was bloomed over with cow- 
 slips, powdering the grass in variable plenty, 
 here scattered, there clustered, innumerable as 
 the stars in the Milky Way. 
 
 She knelt down among them and laid her 
 face close to their fragrance. The weight of 
 all her unhappy years seemed for a moment to 
 weigh her bosom down to the earth; she trem- 
 bled, understanding for the first time how 
 miserable she had been; and in another moment 
 
 15! 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 she was released. It was all gone, it could 
 never be again, and never had been. ‘Tears of 
 thankfulness ran-down her face. With every 
 breath she drew, the scent of the cowslips 
 flowed in and absolved her. 
 
 She was changed, and knew it. She was 
 humbler, and more simple. She ceased to 
 triumph mentally over her tyrants, and rallied 
 herself no longer with the consciousness that 
 she had outraged them by coming to live at 
 Great Mop. ‘The amusement she had drawn 
 from their disapproval was a slavish remnant, 
 a derisive dance on the north bank of the Ohio. 
 ‘There was no question of forgiving them. 
 She had not, in any case, a forgiving nature; 
 and the injury they had done her was not done 
 by them. If she were to start forgiving she 
 must needs forgive Society, the Law, the 
 Church, the History of Europe, the Old ‘Testa- 
 ment, great-great-aunt Salome and her prayer- 
 book, the Bank of England, Prostitution, the 
 Architect of Apsley Terrace, and half a dozen 
 other useful props of civilisation. All she 
 could do was to go on forgetting them. But 
 now she was able to forget them without flout- 
 ing them by her forgetfulness, 
 
 Throughout May and June and the first 
 
 152 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 fortnight of July she lived in perfect idleness 
 
 and contentment, growing every day more 
 freckled and more rooted in peace. On July 
 17th she was disturbed by a breath from the 
 world. ‘Titus came down to see her. It was 
 odd to be called Aunt Lolly again. ‘Titus did 
 not use the term often; he addressed his friends 
 of both sexes and his relations of all ages as 
 My Dear; but Aunt Lolly slipped out now and 
 again. 
 
 ‘There was no need to show Titus the inside 
 of the church. ‘There was no need even to 
 take him up to the windmill and show him the 
 view. He did all that for himself, and got it 
 over before breakfast—for ‘Titus breakfasted 
 for three mornings at Great Mop. He had 
 come for the day only, but he was too pleased 
 to go back. He was his own master now, he 
 had rooms in Bloomsbury and did not need 
 even to send off a telegram. Mrs. Garland 
 who let lodgings in the summer was able to 
 oblige him with a bedroom, full of pincushions 
 and earwigs and marine photographs; and Mrs. 
 ‘Trumpet gave him all the benefit of all the 
 experience he invoked in the choice of a tooth- 
 brush. For three days he sat about with 
 Laura, and talked of his intention to begin 
 
 153 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 brewing immediately. He had refused to visit 
 Italy with his mother—he had rejected sev- 
 eral flattering invitations from editors—because 
 brewing appealed to him more than anything 
 else in the world. ‘This, he said, was the last 
 night out before the wedding. On his return 
 to Bloomsbury he intended to let his rooms to 
 an amiable Mahometan, and to apprentice him- 
 self to his family brewery until he had learnt 
 the family trade. . 
 
 Laura gave him many messages to Lady 
 Place. It was clear before her in an early 
 morning light. She could exactly recall the 
 smell of the shrubbery, her mother flowing 
 across the croquet lawn, her father’s voice as he 
 called up the dogs. She could see herself, too: 
 her old self, for her present self had no part 
 in the place. She did not suppose she would 
 ever return there, although she was glad that 
 ‘Titus was faithful. 
 
 ‘Titus departed. He wrote her a letter from 
 Bloomsbury, saying that he had struck a good 
 bargain with the Mahometan, and was off to 
 Somerset. Ten days later she heard from 
 Sibyl that he was coming to live at Great Mop. 
 She had scarcely time to assemble her feelings 
 about this before he was arrived. 
 
 154 
 
Part 3 
 
 T was the third week in August. The 
 weather was sultiy; day after day Laura 
 heard the village people telling each other that 
 there was thunder in the air. Every evening 
 they stood in the village street, looking up- 
 wards, and the cattle stood waiting in the fields. 
 But the storm delayed. It hid behind the hills, 
 biding its time. | 
 Laura had spent the afternoon in a field, a 
 field of unusual form, for it was triangular. 
 On two sides it was enclosed by woodland, and 
 because of this it was already darkening into a 
 premature twilight, as though it were a room. 
 She had been there for hours. ‘Though it was 
 sultry, she could not sit still. She walked up 
 and down, turning savagely when she came te 
 the edge of the field. Her lmbs were tired, 
 and she stumbled over the flints and matted 
 couch-grass. “Throughout the long afternoon 
 a stock-dove had cooed in the wood. “Cool, 
 cool, cool,” it said, delighting in its green 
 bower. Now it had ceased, and there was no 
 
 155 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 life in the woods. ‘The sky was covered with a 
 thick uniform haze. No ray of the declining 
 sun broke through it, but the whole heavens 
 were beginning to take on a dull, brassy pallor. 
 The long afternoon was ebbing away, stealth- 
 ily, impassively, as though it were dying under 
 an anaesthetic. 
 
 Laura had not listened to the stock-dove; 
 she had not seen the haze thickening overhead. 
 She walked up and down in despair and rebel- 
 lion. She walked slowly, for she felt the 
 weight of her chains. Once more they had 
 been fastened upon her. She had worn them 
 for many years, acquiescently, scarcely feeling 
 their weight. Now she felt it. And, with 
 their weight, she felt their familiarity, and the 
 familiarity was worst of all. ‘Titus had seen 
 her starting out. He had cried: ‘Where are 
 you off to, Aunt Lolly? Wait a minute, and 
 I'll come too.” She had feigned not to hear 
 him and had walked on. She had not turned 
 her head until she was out of the village, she 
 expected at every moment to hear him come 
 bounding up behind her. Had he done so, she 
 thought she would have turned round and 
 snarled at him. For she wanted, oh! how 
 much she. wanted, to be left alone for once. 
 
 156 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Even when she felt pretty sure that she had 
 escaped she could not profit by her solitude, for 
 Titus’s voice still jangled on her nerves. 
 “Where are you off to, Aunt Lolly? Wait a 
 minute, and I'll come too.” She heard his 
 very tones, and heard intensely her own silence 
 that had answered him. ‘Too flustered to notice 
 where she was going, she had followed a chance 
 track until she found herself in this field where 
 she had never been before. Here the track 
 ended, and here she stayed. 
 
 ‘The woods rose up before her like barriers. 
 On the third side of the field was a straggling 
 hedge; along it sprawled a thick bank of bur- 
 ~ docks, growing with malignant profusion. It 
 was an unpleasant spot. Bitterly she said to 
 herself: ‘“‘Well, perhaps he’ll leave me alone 
 here,’ and was glad of its unpleasantness. 
 _ Titus could have all the rest: the green mead- 
 ows, the hill-tops, the: beech-woods dark and 
 resonant as the inside of a sea-shell. He could 
 walk in the greenest meadow and have domin- 
 jon over it like a bull. He could loll his 
 “great body over the hill-tops, or rout silence out 
 of the woods. ‘They were hers, they were all 
 hers, but she would give them all up to him 
 and keep only this dismal field, and these coarse 
 
 157 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 weeds growing out of an uncleansed soil. Any 
 terms to be rid of him. But even on these 
 terms she could not be rid of him, for all the 
 afternoon he had been present in her thoughts, 
 and his voice rang in her ears as distinctly as 
 ever: “Wait a minute, and IT’ll come with 
 you.” She had not waited; but, nevertheless, 
 he had come. 
 
 Actually, she knew—and the knowledge 
 smote her—Titus, seeing her walk by unheed- 
 ing, had picked up his book again and read on, 
 reading slowly, and slowly drawing at his pipe, 
 careless, intent, and satisfied. Perhaps he still 
 sat by the open window. Perhaps he had wan- - 
 dered about, taking his book with him, and 
 now was lying in the shade, still reading, or 
 sleeping with his nose pressed into the grass, or 
 with idle patience inveigling an ant to climb up 
 a dry stalk. For this was Titus, Titus who — 
 had always been her friend. She had believed 
 that she loved him; even when she heard that 
 he was coming to live at Great Mop she had 
 half thought that it might be rather nice to have 
 him there. “Dearest Lolly,” Sibyl had writ- 
 ten from Italy, “I feel quite reconciled to this 
 wild scheme of Tito’s, since you will be there 
 to keep an eye on him. Men are so helpless. 
 
 158 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Tito is so impracticable. A regular artist,” 
 etc. | 
 
 The helpless artist had arrived, and immedi- 
 ately upon his arrival walked out to buy beer 
 and raspberries. Sibyl might feel perfectly 
 reconciled. No cat could jump into the most 
 comfortable armchair more unerringly than 
 Titus. “Such a nice young gentleman,” said 
 Mrs. Garland, smoothing his pyjamas with a 
 voluptuous hand. “Such a nice young gentle- 
 man,” said Miss Carloe, rubbing her finger over 
 the milling of the new florin she received for 
 the raspberries. “Such a nice young gentle- 
 man, said Mrs. Trumpet at the shop, and 
 Mrs. Ward at the Lamb and Flag. All the 
 white-aproned laps opened to dandle him. 
 The infant Bacchus walked down the village 
 street with his beer and his raspberries, bowing 
 graciously to all Laura’s acquaintances. ‘That 
 evening he supped with her and talked about 
 Fuseli. Fuseli—pronounced Foozley—was a 
 neglected figure of the utmost importance. 
 The pictures, of course, didn’t matter: Titus 
 supposed there were some at the Tate. It was 
 Fuseli the man, Fuseli the sign of his times, 
 etc., that ‘Titus was going to write about. It 
 had been the ambition of his life to write a 
 
 159 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 book about Fuseli, and his first visit to Great 
 Mop convinced him that this was the perfect 
 place to write it in. The secret, Titus said, of 
 writing a good book was to be cut off from ac- 
 cess to the reading-room of the British Mu- 
 seum. laura said a little pettishly that if that 
 were all Titus might have stayed in Blooms- 
 bury, and written his book on Good Fri- 
 days. ‘Titus demurred. Suppose he ran out of 
 ink? No! Great Mop was the place. “To- 
 morrow,” he added, “‘you must take me around 
 and show me all your footpaths.” 
 
 He left his pipe and tobacco pouch on the 
 mantelpiece. They lay there like the orb 
 and sceptre of an usurping monarch. Laura 
 dreamed that night that Fuseli had arrived at 
 Mr. Saunter’s poultry-farm, killed the hens, 
 and laid out the field as a golf-course. 
 
 She heard a great deal about Fuseli during 
 the next few days, while she was obediently 
 showing Titus all her footpaths. It was. hot, 
 so they walked in the woods. ‘The paths were 
 narrow, there was seldom room for two to 
 walk abreast, so Titus generally went in front, 
 projecting his voice into the silence. She dis- 
 liked these walks; she felt ashamed of his 
 company; she thought the woods saw her with 
 
 ‘ 160 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 him and drew back scornfully to let them pass 
 by together. | 
 
 Titus was more tolerable in the village 
 street. Indeed, at first she was rather proud of 
 her nephew’s success. After a week he knew 
 everybody, and knew them far better than she 
 did. He passed from the bar-parlour of the 
 Lamb and Flag to the rustic woodwork of the 
 rectors lawn. He subscribed to the bowling- 
 green fund, he joined the cricket club, he en- 
 gaged himself to give readings at the Institute 
 during the winter evenings. He was invited 
 to become a bell-ringer, and to read the lessons. 
 He burgeoned with projects for Co-operative 
 Blue Beverens, morris-dancing, performing 
 Coriolanus with the Ancient Foresters, getting 
 Henry Wappenshaw to come down and paint a 
 village sign, inviting Pandora Williams and her 
 rebeck for the Barleighs Flower Show. He 
 congratulated Laura upon having discovered so 
 unspoilt an example of the village community. 
 After the first fortnight he was less exuber- 
 ant in the growth of his vast fronds. He was 
 growing downwards instead, rooting into the 
 soil. He began his book, and promised to 
 stand godfather to the roadman’s next child. 
 When they went for walks together he would 
 
 161 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 sometimes fall silent, turning his head from 
 side to side to browse the warm scent of a_ 
 clover field. Once, as they stood on the ridge 
 that guarded the valley from the south-east, he © 
 said: “I should like to stroke it’—and he 
 waved his hand towards the pattern of rounded — 
 hills embossed with rounded beech-woods. She 
 felt a cold shiver at his words, and turned 
 away her eyes from the landscape that she loved 
 so jealously. ‘Titus could never have spoken 
 so if he had not loved it too. Love it as he 
 might, with all the deep Willowes love for 
 country sights and smells, love he never so in- 
 timately and soberly, his love must be a horror — 
 to her. It was different in kind from hers. 
 It was comfortable, it was portable, it was a 
 reasonable appreciative appetite, a possessive and 
 masculine love. It almost estranged her from — 
 Great Mop that he should be able to love it so 
 well, and express his love so easily. He loved 
 the countryside as though it were a body. 
 
 She had not loved it so. For days at a time 
 she had been unconscious of its outward aspect, 
 for long before she saw it she had loved it and 
 blessed it. With no earnest but a name, a few 
 lines and letters on a map, and a spray of 
 beech-leaves, she had trusted the place and 
 
 162 
 
LOLDLY WEeLLoOow'EsS 
 
 staked everything on her trust. She had strug- 
 gled to come, but there had been no such 
 struggle for Titus. It was as easy for him to 
 quit Bloomsbury for the Chilterns as for a cat 
 to jump from a hard chair toa soft. Now af- 
 ter a little scrabbling and exploration he was 
 curled up in the green lap and purring over the 
 landscape. ‘The green lap was comfortable. 
 He meant to stay in it, for he knew where he 
 was well off. It was so comfortable that he 
 could afford to wax loving, praise its kindly 
 slopes, stretch out a discriminating paw and pat 
 it. But Great Mop was no more to him than 
 any- other likeable country lap. He liked it 
 because he was in possession. His comfort 
 apart, it was a place like any other place. 
 
 Laura hated him for daring to love it so. 
 She hated him for daring to love it at all. 
 Most of all she hated him for imposing his kind 
 of love on her. Since he had come to Great 
 Mop she had not been allowed to love in her 
 own way. Commenting, pointing out, appre- 
 ciating, [Titus tweaked her senses one after an- 
 other as if they were so many bell-ropes. He 
 was a good judge of country things; little 
 escaped him, he understood the points of a land- 
 scape as James his father had understood the 
 
 163 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 points of a horse. “This was not her way. 
 She was ashamed at paying the countryside these 
 horse-coping compliments. Day by day the 
 spirit of the place withdrew itself further 
 from her. ‘The woods judged her by her com- 
 pany, and hushed their talk as she passed by with 
 Titus. Silence heard them coming, and fled 
 out of the fields, the hills locked up their 
 thoughts, and became so many grassy mounds 
 to be walked up and walked down. She was 
 being boycotted, and she knew it. Presently 
 she would not know it any more. For her too 
 Great Mop would be a place like any other 
 place, a pastoral landscape where an aunt 
 walked out with her nephew. 
 
 Nothing was left her but this sour field. 
 Even this was not truly hers, for here also 
 ‘Titus walked beside her and called her Aunt 
 Lolly. She was powerless against him. He 
 had no idea how he had havocked her peace of 
 mind, he was making her miserable in the best 
 of faith. If he could guess, or if she could 
 tell him, what ruin he carried with him, he 
 would have gone away. She admitted that, 
 even in her frenzy of annoyance. ‘Titus had | 
 a kind heart, he meant her nothing but good. 
 Besides, he could easily find another village, 
 
 164 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 other laps were as smooth and as green. But 
 that would never happen. He would never 
 guess. It would never occur to him to look for 
 resentment in her face, or to speculate upon 
 the mood of any one he knew so well. And 
 she would never be able to tell him. When she 
 was with him she came to heel and resumed 
 her old employment of being Aunt Lolly. 
 ‘There was no way out. 
 
 _ In vain she had tried to escape, transient and 
 delusive had been her ecstasies of relief. She 
 had thrown away twenty years of her life like 
 a handful of old rags, but the wind had blown 
 them back again, and dressed her in the old 
 uniform. ‘The wind blew steadily from the 
 old quarter; it was the same east wind that 
 chivied bits of waste paper down Apsley Ter- 
 race. And she was the same old Aunt Lolly, 
 so useful and obliging and negligible. 
 
 The field was full of complacent witnesses. 
 Titus had let them in. Henry and Caroline 
 and Sibyl, Fancy and Marion and Mr. Wolf- 
 Saunders stood round about her; they recog- 
 nised her and cried out: “Why, Aunt Lolly, 
 what are you doing here”? And Dunlop came 
 stealthily up behind her and said: “Excuse 
 me, Miss Lolly, I thought you might like to 
 
 165 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 know that the warning gong has gone!” She 
 stood at bay, trembling before them, shaken 
 and sick with the grinding anger of the slave. 
 They were come out to recapture her, they had 
 tracked her down and closed her in. ‘They 
 had let her run a little way—that was all—for 
 they knew they could get her back when they 
 chose. ‘They had stood grinning behind the 
 bushes when she wept in the cowslip field. 
 
 It had been quite entertaining to watch her, 
 for she had taken herself and her freedom so 
 seriously, happy and intent as a child keeping 
 house under the table. They had watched 
 awhile in their condescending grown-up way, 
 and now they approached her to end the game. 
 Henry was ready to overlook her rebellion, his 
 lips glistened with magnanimity; Caroline and 
 Sibyl came smiling up to twine their arms round 
 her waist; the innocent children of Fancy and 
 Marion stretched out their hands to her and 
 called her Aunt Lolly. And Titus, who had 
 let them in, stood a little apart like a showman, 
 and said, “You see, it’s all right. She’s just 
 the same.” 
 
 They were all leagued against her. They 
 were come out to seize on her soul. They 
 were invulnerably sure of their prey. 
 
 166 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “No!” she cried out, wildly clapping her 
 hands together. “No! You shan’t get me. 
 I won’t go back. I won’t.... Oh! Is 
 there xo help?” 
 
 The sound of her voice frightened her. She 
 heard its desperate echo rouse the impassive 
 wood. She raised her eyes and looked round 
 her. ‘The field was empty. She trembled, 
 and felt cold. The sultry afternoon was over. 
 Dusk and a clammy chill seemed to creep out 
 from among the darkening trees that waited 
 there so stilly. It was as though autumn had 
 come in the place of twilight, and the colour- 
 less dark hue of the field dazzled before her 
 eyes. She stood in the middle of the field, 
 waiting for an answer to her cry. “There was 
 no answer. And yet the silence that had fol- 
 lowed it had been so intent, so deliberate, that 
 it was like a pledge. If any listening power 
 inhabited this place; if any grimly favourable 
 power had been evoked by her cry; then surely 
 a compact had been made, and the pledge irre- 
 vocably given. 
 
 She walked slowly towards the wood. She 
 was incredibly fatigued; she could scarcely drag 
 one foot after the other. Her mind was al- 
 most a blank. She had forgotten Titus; she 
 
 167 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 had forgotten the long afternoon of frenzy 
 and bewilderment. Everything was unreal ex- 
 cept the silence that followed after her outcry. 
 As she came to the edge of the wood she heard 
 the mutter of heavy foliage. “No!” the 
 woods seemed to say, “No! We will not let 
 you go.” 
 
 She walked home unheedingly, almost as 
 though she were walking in her sleep. ‘The 
 chance contact with a briar or a tall weed sent 
 drowsy tinglings through her flesh. It was 
 with surprise that she looked down from a hill- 
 side and saw the crouched roofs of the village 
 before her. . 
 
 The cottage was dark; Laura remembered 
 that Mrs. Leak had said that she was going out. 
 to a lecture at the Congregational Hall that 
 evening. As she unlocked the door she smiled 
 at the thought of having the house all to her- 
 self. “The passage was cool and smelt of 
 linoleum. She heard the kitchen clock ticking 
 pompously as if it, too, were pleased to have 
 the house to itself. When Mrs. Leak went 
 out and left the house empty, she was careful 
 to lock the door of Laura’s parlour and to put 
 the key under the case with the stuffed owl. 
 Laura slid her fingers into the dark slit bet- 
 
 168 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 tween the bottom of the case and the bracket. 
 The key was cold and sleek; she liked the feel 
 of it, and the obliging way it turned in the 
 lock. 
 
 As she entered the room, she sniffed. It 
 smelt a little fusty from being shut up on a 
 warm evening. Her nose distinguished ‘Titus’s 
 tobacco and the hemp agrimony that she had 
 picked the day before. But there was some- 
 thing else—a faintly animal smell which she 
 could not account for. She threw up the rat- 
 tling window and turned to light the lamp. 
 Under the green shade the glow whitened and 
 steadied itself. It illuminated the supper-table 
 prepared for her, the shining plates, the cucum- 
 ber and the radishes, and neat slices of cold 
 veal and the glistening surface of the junket. 
 Nameless and patient, these things had been 
 Waiting in the dark, waiting for her to come 
 back and enjoy them. ‘They met her eye with 
 self-possession. [hey had been sure that she 
 would be pleased to see them. Her spirits shot 
 up, as the flame of the lamp had cleared and 
 steadied itself a moment before. She forgot 
 all possibility of distress. She thought only of 
 the moment, and of the certainty with which. 
 she possessed it. In this mood of sleepy exalta- 
 
 169 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 tion she stood and looked at the supper-table. 
 Long before she had come to Great Mop, the 
 shining plates had come. Four of them, she 
 knew from Mrs. Leak, had been broken; one 
 was too much scorched in the oven to be pre- 
 sentable before her. But these had survived 
 that she might come and eat off them. ‘The 
 quiet cow that had yielded so quietly the milk 
 for her junket had wandered in the fields of 
 Great Mop long before she saw them, or saw 
 them in fancy. ‘The radishes and cucumbers 
 sprang from old and well-established Great 
 Mop families. Her coming had been foreseen, 
 her way had been prepared. Great Mop was 
 infallibly part of her life, and she part of the 
 life of Great Mop. She took up a plate and 
 looked at the maker’s mark. It had come from 
 Stoke-on-Trent, where she had never been. 
 Now it was here, waiting for her to eat off it. 
 “The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts,” she 
 murmured. 
 
 As she spoke, she felt something move by her. 
 foot. She glanced down and saw a small kit- 
 ten. It crouched by her foot, biting her shoe- 
 lace, and lashing its tail from side to side. 
 Laura did not like cats; but this creature, so 
 small, so intent, and so ferocious, amused her 
 
 170 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 into kindly feelings. “How did you come 
 here? Did you come in through the keyhole?” 
 she asked, and bent down to stroke it. Scarcely 
 had she touched its hard little head when it 
 writhed itself round her hand, noiselessly claw- 
 ing and biting, and kicking with its hind legs. 
 She felt frightened by an attack so fierce and 
 irrational, and her fears increased as she tried 
 to shake off the tiny weight. At last she freed 
 her hand, and looked at it. It was covered 
 with fast-reddening scratches, and as she looked 
 she saw a bright round drop of blood ooze out 
 from one of them. Her heart gave a violent 
 leap, and seemed to drop dead in her bosom. 
 She gripped the back of a chair to steady her- 
 self and stared at the kitten. Abruptly paci- 
 fied, it had curled itself into a ball and fallen 
 asleep. Its lean ribs heaved with a rhythmic 
 tide of sleep. As she stared she saw its pink 
 tongue flicker for one moment over its lips. It 
 slept like a suckling. 
 
 Not for a moment did she doubt. But so 
 deadly, so complete was the certainty that it 
 seemed to paralyse her powers of understanding, 
 like a snake-bite in the brain. She continued 
 to stare at the kitten, scarcely knowing what it 
 was that she knew. Her heart had begun to 
 
 171 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 beat once more, slowly, slowly; her ears were 
 dizzied with a shrill wall of sound, and her flesh 
 hung on her clammy and unreal. The animal 
 smell] that she had noticed when first she entered 
 the room now seemed overwhelming rank. 
 It smelt as if walls and floor and ceiling had 
 been smeared with the juice of bruised fen- 
 nel. 
 
 She, Laura Willowes, in England, in the year 
 1922, had entered into a compact with the 
 Devil. The compact was made, and affirmed, 
 and sealed with the round red seal of her blood. 
 She remembered the woods, she remembered her 
 wild cry for help, and the silence that had fol- 
 lowed it, as though in ratification. She heard 
 again the mutter of heavy foliage, foliage dark 
 and heavy as the wings of night birds. “No! 
 No!”—she heard the brooding voice—“We 
 will not let you go.” At ease, released from her 
 cares, she had walked homeward. Hedge and 
 coppice and solitary tree, and the broad dust- 
 coloured faces of meadow-sweet and hemlock 
 had watched her go by, knowing. ‘The dusk 
 had closed her in, brooding! over her. Every 
 shadow, every deepened grove had observed her 
 from under their brows of obscurity. All knew, 
 all could bear witness. Couched within the 
 
 172 
 
~ LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 wood, sleeping through the long sultry after- 
 noon, had lain the Prince of Darkness; sleep- 
 ing, or meditating some brooding thunderstorm 
 of his own. Her voice of desperate need had 
 aroused him, his silence had answered her with 
 a pledge. And now, as a sign of the bond 
 between them, he had sent his emissary. It 
 had arrived before her, a rank breath, a harsh 
 black body in her locked room. ‘The kitten 
 was her familiar spirit, that already had greeted 
 its mistress, and sucked her blood. 
 
 She shut her eyes and stood very still, hollow- 
 ing her mind to admit this inconceivable 
 thought. Suddenly she started. ‘There was a 
 voice in the room. 
 
 It was the kitten’s voice. It stood beside 
 her, mewing plaintively. She turned, and con- 
 sidered it—her familiar. It was the smallest 
 and thinnest kitten that she had ever seen. It 
 was so young that it could barely stand steadily 
 upon its legs. She caught herself thinking that 
 it was too young to be taken from its mother. 
 But the thought was ridiculous. Probably it 
 had no mother, for it was the Devil’s kitten, 
 and sucked, not milk, but blood. But for all 
 that, it looked very like any other young starve- 
 ling of its breed. Its face was peaked and its 
 
 173 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 ribs stood out under the dishevelled fluff of its 
 sides. Its mew was disproportionately piercing 
 and expressive. Strange that anything so small 
 and weak should be the Devil’s Officer, pleni- 
 potentiary of such a power. Strange that she 
 should stand trembling and amazed before a lit- 
 tle rag-and-bone kitten with absurdly large ears. 
 
 Its anxious voice besought her, its pale eyes 
 were fixed upon her face. She could not but 
 feel sorry for anything that seemed so defence- 
 less and castaway. Poor little creature, no 
 doubt it missed the Devil, its warm nest in his 
 shaggy flanks, its play with imp companions. 
 Now it had been sent out on its master’s busi- 
 ness, sent out too young into the world, like a 
 slavey from an Institution. It had no one to 
 look to now but her, and it implored her help, as 
 she but a little while ago had implored its 
 Master’s. Her pity overcame her terror. It 
 was no longer her familiar, but a foundling. 
 And it was hungry. Must it have more blood, 
 or would milk do? Milk was more suitable for 
 its tender age. She walked to the table, poured 
 out a saucer full of milk and set it down on the 
 floor. ‘The kitten drank as though it were starv- 
 ing. Crouched by the saucer with dabbled 
 nose, it shut its pale eyes and laid back its ears 
 
 174 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 to lap, while shoots of ecstasy ran down its 
 protuberant spine and stirred the tip of its tail. 
 As Laura watched it the last of her repugnance 
 was overcome. ‘Though she did not like cats 
 she thought that she would like this one. After 
 all, it was pleasant to have some small thing to 
 look after. Many lonely women found great 
 companionship with even quite ordinary cats. 
 This creature could never grow up a beauty, but 
 no doubt it would be intelligent. When it had 
 cleaned the saucer with large final sweeps of its 
 tongue, the kitten looked up at her. “Poor 
 lamb!” she said, and poured out the rest of the 
 milk. It drank less famishingly now. Its tail 
 lay still, its body relaxed, settling down on to 
 the floor, overcome by the peaceful weight 
 within. At last, having finished its meal, it got 
 up and walked round the room, stretching either 
 hind leg in turn as it walked. ‘Then, without 
 a glance at Laura, it lay down, coiled and un- 
 coiled, scratched itself nonchalantly and fell 
 asleep. She watched it awhile and then picked 
 it up, all limp and unresisting, and settled it in 
 her lap. It scarcely opened its eyes, but burrow- 
 ing once or twice with its head against her 
 knees resumed its slumber. 
 
 Nursing the kitten in her lap Laura sat 
 
 Ne ys 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 thinking. Her thoughts were of a different 
 colour now. ‘This trustful contentment, this 
 warmth between her knees, lulled her by ex- 
 ample. She had never wavered for an instant 
 from her conviction that she had made a com- 
 pact with the Devil; now she was growing ac- 
 customed to the thought. She perceived that 
 throughout the greater part of her life she had 
 been growing accustomed to it; but insensibly, as 
 people throughout the greater part of their lives 
 grow accustomed to the thought of their death. 
 When it comes, it is a surprise to them. But 
 the surprise does not last long, perhaps but for a 
 minute or two. Her surprise also was wearing 
 off. Quite soon, and she would be able to fold 
 her hands upon it, as the hands of the dead are 
 folded upon their surprised hearts. But her 
 heart still beat, beat at its everyday rate, a small 
 regular pulse impelling her momently forward 
 into the new witch life that lay before her. 
 Since her flesh had already accepted the new 
 order of things, and was proceeding so methodi- 
 cally towards the future, it behoved her, so she 
 thought, to try to readjust her spirit. 
 
 She raised her eyes, and looked at her room, 
 the green-painted walls with the chairs sitting 
 silently round. She felt herself inhabiting the 
 
 176 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 empty house. “Through the unrevealing square 
 of the window her mind looked at the view. 
 About the empty house was the village, and 
 about the village the hills, neighbourly under 
 their covering of night. Room, house, village, 
 hills encircled her like the rings of a fortifica- 
 tion. ‘This was her domain, and it was to keep 
 this inviolate that she had made her compact 
 with the Devil. She did not know what the 
 price might be, but she was sure of the purchase. 
 She need not fear Titus now, nor any of the 
 Willoweses. ‘They could not drive her out, or 
 enslave her spirit any more, nor shake her 
 possession of the place she had chosen. While 
 she lived her solitudes were hers inalienably; 
 she and the kitten, the witch and the familiar, 
 ’ would live on at Great Mop, growing old to- 
 gether, and hearing the owls hoot from the 
 winter trees. And after? Mirk! But what 
 else had there ever been? ‘Those green grassy 
 hills in the churchyard were too high to be seen 
 over.’ What man can stand on their summit 
 and look beyond? 
 
 She felt neither fear nor disgust. A witch of 
 but a few hours’ standing she rejected with the 
 scorn of the initiate all the bugaboo surmises of 
 the public. She looked with serene curiosity 
 
 t77 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 at the future, and saw it but little altered from 
 what she had hoped and planned, -If she had 
 been called upon to decide in cold blood between 
 being an aunt and being a witch, she might 
 have been overawed by habit and the cowardice 
 of compunction. But in the moment of elec- 
 tion, under the stress and turmoil of the hunted 
 Lolly as under a covering of darkness, the true 
 Laura had settled it all unerringly. She had 
 known where to turn. She had been like the 
 girl in the fairy tale whose godmother gave her 
 ~ a little nutshell box and told her to open it in 
 the hour of utter distress. Unsurmised by 
 others, and half forgotten by the girl, the little 
 nutshell box abided its time; and in the hour 
 of utter distress it opened of itself. So, un- 
 realised, had Laura been carrying her talisman 
 in her pocket. She was a witch by vocation. 
 Even in the old days of Lady Place the impulse 
 had stirred in her. What else had set her upon 
 her long solitary walks, her quests for powerful 
 and forgotten herbs, her brews and distillations? 
 In London she had never had the heart to take 
 out her still. More urgent for being denied this 
 innocent service, the ruling power of her life 
 had assaulted her with dreams and intimations, 
 calling her imagination out from the warm safe 
 
 178 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 room to wander in darkened fields and by deso- 
 late sea-boards, through marshes and fens, and 
 along the outskirts of brooding woods. It had 
 haled her to Wapping and to the Jews’ Burying 
 Ground, and then, ironically releasing her, had 
 left her to mourn and find her way back to 
 Apsley Terrace. How she had come to Great 
 Mop she could not say; whether it was of her 
 own will, or whether, exchanging threatenings 
 and mockeries for sweet persuasions, Satan had 
 at last taken pity upon her bewilderment, lead- 
 ing her by the hand into the flower-shop in the 
 ~ Moscow Road; but from the moment of her 
 arrival there he had never been far off. Sure 
 of her—she supposed—he had done little for 
 nine months but watch her. Near at hand but 
 out of sight the loving huntsman couched in 
 the woods, following her with his eyes. But 
 all the time, whether couched in the woods or 
 hunting among the hills, he drew closer. He 
 was hidden in the well when she threw in the 
 map and the guide-book. He sat in the oven, 
 teaching her what power she might have over 
 the shapes of men. He followed her and Mr. 
 Saunter up and down between the henhouses. 
 He was nearest of all upon the night when she 
 climbed Cubbey Ridge, so near then that she 
 
 179 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 acknowledged his presence and was afraid. 
 That night, indeed, he must have been within a 
 hand’s-breadth of her. But her fear had kept 
 him at bay, or else he had not chosen to take her 
 just then, preferring to watch until he could 
 overcome her mistrust and lure her into his 
 hand. For Satan is not only a huntsman. His 
 interest in mankind is that of a skilful and ex- 
 perienced naturalist. Even human sportsmen 
 at the end of their span sometimes declare that 
 to potter about in the woods is more amusing 
 than to sit behind a butt and shoot driven grouse. 
 And Satan, who has hunted from eternity, a 
 little jaded moreover by the success of his latest 
 organised Flanders battue, might well feel that 
 his interest in a Solitary Snipe like Laura was 
 but sooner or later to measure the length of her 
 nose. Yet hunt he must; it is his destiny, and 
 whether he hunts with a gun or a butterfly net, 
 sooner or later the chase must end. All finali- 
 ties, whether good or evil, bestow a feeling of 
 relief; and now, understanding how long the 
 chase had lasted, Laura felt a kind of satisfac- 
 tion at having been popped into the bag. 
 
 She was distracted from these interesting 
 thoughts by the sounds of footsteps. The kit- 
 
 180 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 ten heard them too, and sat up, yawning. 
 The Leaks coming back from their lecture, 
 thought Laura. But it was Titus. Inserting 
 his head and shoulders through the window 
 he asked if he could come in and borrow som: 
 milk. , 
 
 “I haven’t any milk,” said Laura, “but come 
 in all the same.” 
 
 She began to tickle the kitten behind the ears 
 in order to reassure it. By lamplight ‘Titus’s 
 head seemed even nearer to the ceiling, it was a 
 relief to her sense of proportion when he sat 
 down. His milk, he explained, the jugful 
 which Mrs. Garland left on the sitting-room 
 table for his nightly Ovaltine, had curdled into 
 a sort of unholy junket. ‘This he attributed to 
 popular education, and the spread of science 
 among dairy-farmers; in other words, Mr. Dod- 
 bury had overdone the preservative. 
 
 “I don’t think it’s science,’ said Laura. 
 “More likely to be the weather. It was very 
 sultry this afternoon.” 
 
 “T saw you starting out. I had half a mind 
 to come with you, but it was too hot to be a 
 loving nephew. Where did you go?” 
 
 “Up to the windmill.” 
 
 181 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “Did you find the wind?” 
 
 fe Nie. 7? | 
 
 “You weren’t going in the direction of the 
 windmill when I saw you.” 
 
 “No. I changed my mind. About the 
 milk,” she continued (Titus had come for milk. 
 Perhaps, being reminded that he had come in 
 vain, he would go. She was growing sleepy): 
 “Y’m sorry, but I have none left. I gave it 
 all to the kitten.” 
 
 “T’ve been remarking the kitten. He’s new, 
 isn’t he? You ugly little devil!” 
 
 The kitten lay on her knees quite quietly. 
 It regarded Titus with its pale eyes, and blinked 
 indifferently. It was only waiting for him to 
 go, Laura thought, to fall asleep again. 
 
 “Where has it come from? A present from 
 the water-butt?” 
 
 “T don’t know. I found it here when I 
 came back for supper.” 
 
 “Tt’s a plain-headed young Grimalkin. Still, 
 I should keep it if I were you. It will bring 
 you luck.” 
 
 “T don’t think one has much option about 
 keeping a cat,” said Laura. “If it wants to 
 stay with me it shall.” 
 
 “It looks settled enough. Do keep it, Aunt 
 
 182 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 Lolly. A woman looks her best with a cat on 
 her knees.” 
 
 Laura bowed. 
 
 “What will you call it?” 
 
 Into Laura’s memory came a picture she had 
 seen long ago in one of the books at Lady Place. 
 The book was about the persecution of the 
 witches, and the picture was a woodcut of 
 Matthew Hopkins the witch-finder. Wearing 
 a large hat he stood among a coven of witches, 
 bound cross-legged upon their stools. ‘Their 
 confessions came out of their mouths upon 
 scrolls. “My imp’s name is Ilemauzar,” said 
 one; and another imp at the bottom of the 
 page, an alert, ill-favoured cat, so lean and 
 muscular that it looked like a skinned hare, was 
 called Vinegar Tom. 
 
 “T shall call it Vinegar,” she answered. 
 
 “Vinegar!” said Titus. “How do you like 
 your name?” 
 
 The kitten pricked up its ears. It sprang 
 from Laura’s knee and began to fence with 
 Titus’s shadow, feinting and leaping back. 
 Laura watched it a little apprehensively, but it 
 did him no harm. It had awakened in a play- 
 ful frame of mind after its long sleep, that was 
 all. When ‘Titus had departed it followed 
 
 183 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Laura to her bedroom, and as she undressed it 
 danced round her, patting at her clothes as they 
 fell. 
 
 In the morning the kitten roused her by 
 mewing to be let out. She awoke from a pro- 
 found and dreamless sleep. It took her a little 
 time to realise that she had a kitten in her bed- 
 room, a kitten of no ordinary kind. However 
 it was behaving quite like an ordinary kitten 
 now, so she get out of bed and let it out by the 
 back door. It was early; no one was stirring. 
 The kitten disappeared with dignity among the 
 cabbages, and Laura turned her thoughts back- 
 ward to the emotions of overnight. She tried 
 to recall them, but could not; she could only 
 recall the fact that overnight she had felt them. 
 The panic that then had shaken her flesh was 
 no more actual than a last winter’s gale. It 
 had been violent enough while it lasted, an 
 invisible buffeting, a rending of life from its 
 context. But now her memory presented it to 
 her as a cold slab of experience, like a slab of 
 pudding that had lain all night solidifying in 
 the larder. ‘This was no matter. Her terror 
 had been an incident; it had no bearing upon 
 her future, could she now recall it to life it 
 would have no message for her. But she re- 
 
 184 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 gretted her inability to recapture the mood that 
 had followed upon it, when she sat still and 
 thought so wisely about Satan. ‘Those medita- 
 tions had seemed to her of profound import. 
 She had sat at her Master’s feet, as it were, ad- 
 mitted to intimacy, and gaining the most valu- 
 able insight into his character. But that was 
 gone too. Her thoughts, recalled, seemed to be 
 of the most commonplace nature, and she felt 
 that she knew very little about the Devil. 
 
 Meanwhile there was the kitten, an earnest 
 that she should know more. 
 
 “Vinegar!” she called, and heard its answer, 
 a drumming scramble among the cabbage leaves. 
 She wished that Vinegar would impart some of 
 his mind to her instead of being so persistently 
 and genially kittenish. But he was a familiar, 
 no doubt of it. And she was a witch, the 
 inheritrix of aged magic, spells rubbed smooth 
 with long handling, and the mistress of strange 
 powers that got into Titus’s milk-jug. For no 
 doubt that was the beginning, and a very good 
 beginning, too. Well begun is half-done; she 
 could see Titus bending over his suit-case. “The 
 Willowes tradition was very intolerant of pease 
 under its mattress. 
 
 Though she tried to think clearly about the 
 
 185 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 situation—grapple, she remembered, had been 
 Caroline’s unpleasantly strenuous word—her 
 attention kept sidling off to other things: the 
 sudden oblique movements of the water-drops 
 that glistened on the cabbage leaves, or the 
 affinity between the dishevelled brown hearts of 
 the sunflowers and Mrs. Leak’s scrubbing-brush, 
 propped up on the kitchen window-sill. It must 
 have rained heavily during the night. ‘The 
 earth was moist and swelled, and the air so 
 fresh that it made her yawn. Her limbs were 
 heavy, and the contentment of the newly- 
 awakened was upon her. All night she had 
 bathed in nothingness, and now she was too 
 recently emerged from that absolving tide to 
 take much interest in what lay upon its banks. 
 Her eyelids began to droop, and calling the 
 kitten she went back to bed again and soon 
 fell asleep. , 
 
 She was asleep when Mrs. Leak brought her 
 morning tea. 
 
 Mrs. Leak said: “Did the thunder keep you 
 awake, miss?” 
 
 Laura shook her head. “TI never even heard 
 ie 
 
 Mrs. Leak looked much astonished. “It’s 
 well to have a good conscience,” she remarked. 
 
 186 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Laura stretched herself, sat up in bed, and 
 began to tell Mrs. Leak about the kitten. This 
 seemed to be her real awakening. ‘The other 
 was a dream. 
 
 Mrs. Leak was quite prepared to welcome 
 the kitten; that was, provided her old Jim made 
 no unpleasantness. Jim was not Mr. Leak, but 
 a mottled marmalade cat, very old and rather 
 shabby. Laura could not imagine him making 
 any unpleasantness, but Mrs. Leak estimated 
 his character rather differently. Jim thought 
 himself quite a Great I Am, she said. 
 
 After breakfast Laura and Vinegar were 
 called into the kitchen for the ceremony of 
 introduction. Jim was doing a little washing. 
 His hind leg was stuck straight up, out of the 
 way, while he attended to the pit of his stomach. 
 Nothing could have been more suitable than 
 Vinegar’s modest and deferential approach. 
 Jim gave him one look and went on licking. 
 Mrs. Leak said that all would be well between 
 them; Jim always kept himself to himself, but 
 she could see that the old cat had taken quite a 
 fancy to Miss Willowes’s kitten. She promised 
 Vinegar some of Jim’s rabbit for dinner. Mrs. 
 Leak did not hold the ordinary view of country 
 people that cats must fend for themselves. 
 
 187 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “They're as thoughtful as we,” she said. 
 “Why should they eat mouse unless they want 
 to?” She was continually knocking at the 
 parlour door with tit-bits for Vinegar, but she 
 was scrupulous that Laura should bestow them 
 with her own hand. 
 Since Titus had come to Great Mop Laura 
 had seen little of Mrs. Leak. Mrs. Leak knew 
 what good manners were; she had not been 
 a housemaid at Lazzard Court for nothing. 
 ‘Taken separately, either Titus or his aunt might 
 be human beings, but in conjunction they became 
 gentry. Mrs. Leak remembered her position 
 and withdrew to it, firmly. Laura saw this 
 and was sorry. She made several attempts to 
 persuade Mrs.,Leak out from behind her white 
 apron, but nothing came of them, and she knew 
 that while Titus was in the village nothing 
 would. Not that Mrs. Leak did not lke Titus; 
 she approved of him highly; and it was exactly 
 her approval that made her barricade of respect 
 so insuperable. But where Laura had failed, 
 the kitten succeeded. From the moment that 
 Jim sanctioned her kindly opinion of him, Mrs. 
 Leak began to thaw. Laura knew better than 
 to make a fuss over this turn in the situation; 
 
 188 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 she took a leaf out of the Devil’s book and 
 lay low, waiting for a decisive advance; and 
 presently it came. Mrs. Leak asked if Miss 
 Willowes would care to come out for a stroll 
 one evening; it was pleasant to get a breath of 
 air before bedtime. Miss Willowes would like 
 nothing better; that very evening would suit 
 her if Mrs. Leak had nothing else todo. Mrs. 
 Leak said that she would get the washing-up 
 done as soon as possible, and after that she would 
 be at Miss Willowes’s disposal. However, it 
 was nearly half-past ten before Mrs. Leak 
 knocked on the parlour door. Laura had ceased 
 to expect her, supposing that Mr. Leak or some 
 household accident had claimed her, but she was 
 quite as ready to go out for a walk as to go to 
 bed, and Mrs. Leak made no reference to the 
 lateness of the hour. Indeed, according to the 
 Great Mop standard, the hour was not particu- 
 larly late. Although the night was dark, Laura 
 noticed that quite a number of the inhabitants 
 were standing about in the street. 
 
 They walked down the road in silence as far . 
 as the milestone, and turned into the track that 
 went up the hillside and past the wood. Others 
 had turned that way also. ‘The gate stood open, 
 
 189 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 and voices sounded ahead. It was then that 
 Laura guessed the truth, and turned to her 
 companion. 
 
 “‘Where are you taking me?” she said. Mrs. 
 Leak made no answer, but in the darkness she 
 took hold of Laura’s hand. ‘There was no need 
 for further explanation. ‘They were going to 
 the Witches’ Sabbath. Mrs, Leak was a witch 
 too; a matronly witch like Agnes Sampson, 
 she would be Laura’s chaperone. ‘The night 
 was full of voices. Padding rustic footsteps 
 went by them in the dark When they had 
 reached the brow of the hill a faint continuous 
 sound, resembling music, was borne towards 
 them by the light wind. Laura remembered 
 how young Billy Thomas, suffering from tooth- 
 ache, had played all night upon his mouth- 
 organ. She laughed. Mrs. Leak squeezed her 
 hand. 
 
 ‘The meeting-place was some way off; by the 
 time they reached it Laura’s eyes had grown 
 accustomed to the darkness. She could see a” 
 crowd of people walking about in a large field; 
 lights of some sort were burning under a hedge, 
 and one or two paper garlands were looped over 
 the trees. When she first caught sight of them, 
 the assembled witches and warlocks seemed to 
 
 190 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 be dancing, but now the music had stopped and 
 they were just walking about. There was 
 something about their air of disconnected jollity 
 which reminded Laura of a Primrose League 
 gala and féte. A couple of bullocks watched 
 the Sabbath from an adjoining field. 
 
 Laura was denied the social gift, she had 
 never been good at enjoying parties. But this, 
 she hoped, would be a different and more ex- 
 hilarating affair. She entered the field in a 
 most propitious frame of mind, which not even 
 Mr. Gurdon, wearing a large rosette like a 
 steward’s and staring rudely and searchingly at 
 each comer before he allowed them to pass 
 through the gate, was able to check. 
 
 “Old Goat!” exclaimed Mrs. Leak in a voice 
 of contemptuous amusement after they had 
 passed out of Mr. Gurdon’s hearing. ‘He 
 thinks he can boss us here, just as he does in the 
 village.” 
 
 “Is Mr. Jones here?” inquired Laura. 
 
 Mrs. Leak shook her head and laughed. 
 
 “Mr. Gurdon doesn’t allow him to come.” 
 
 “TI suppose he doesn’t think it suitable for a 
 clergyman.” 
 
 Perhaps it was as well that Mr. Gurdon had 
 such strict views. In spite of the example of 
 
 IQI 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Mr. Lowis, that old reading parson, it might 
 be a little awkward if Mr. Jones were allowed 
 to attend the Sabbath. 
 
 But that apparently was not the reason. Mrs. 
 Leak was beginning to explain when she broke 
 off abruptly, coughed in a respectful way, and 
 dropped a deep curtsey. Before them stood an 
 old lady, carrying herself like a queen, and 
 wearing a mackintosh that would have disgraced 
 a tinker’s drab. She acknowledged Mrs. Leak’s 
 curtsey with an inclination of the head, and 
 turned to Laura. 
 
 “Tam Miss Larpent. And you, I think, must 
 be Miss Willowes.” | 
 
 The voice that spoke was clear as a small 
 bell and colourless as if time had bleached it of 
 every human feeling save pride. ‘The hand that 
 rested in Laura’s was light as a bird’s claw; 
 a fine glove encased it like a membrane, and 
 through the glove Laura felt the slender bones 
 and the sharp-faceted rings. 
 
 “Long ago,” continued Miss Larpent, “I had 
 the pleasure of meeting your great-uncle, 
 Commodore Willowes.” 
 
 Good heavens, thought Laura in a momentary 
 confusion, was great-uncle Demetrius a war- 
 lock? For Miss Larpent was so perfectly 
 
 192 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 witchlike that it seemed scarcely possible that 
 she should condescend to ordinary gentle- 
 men. 
 
 Apparently Miss Larpent could read Laura’s 
 thoughts. 
 
 “At Cowes,” she added, reassuringly. 
 
 Laura raised her eyes to answer, but Miss 
 Larpent had disappeared. Where she had stood, 
 stood Miss Carloe, mincing and bridling, as 
 though she would usurp the other’s gentility. 
 Over her face she wore a spotted veil. Rec- 
 ognising Laura she put on an air of delighted 
 surprise and squeaked like a bat, and immediately 
 she too edged away and was lost in the dark- 
 ness. i 
 Then a young man whom she did not know 
 came up to Laura and put his arm respectfully 
 round her waist. She found herself expected to 
 dance. She could not hear any music, but she 
 danced as best she could, keeping time to the 
 rhythm of his breath upon her cheek. ‘Their 
 dance was short, she supposed she had not 
 acquitted herself to her partner’s satisfaction, 
 for after a few turns he released her, and left 
 her standing by the hedge. Not a word had 
 passed between them. Laura felt that she ought 
 to say something, but she could not think of 
 
 193 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 a suitable opening. It was scarcely possible to 
 praise the floor. | 
 
 A familiar discouragement began to settle 
 upon her spirits. In spite of her hopes she was 
 not going to enjoy herself. Even as a witch, 
 it seemed, she was doomed to social failure, and 
 her first Sabbath was not going to open livelier 
 vistas than were opened by her first ball. She 
 remembered her dancing days in Somerset, 
 Hunt Balls, and County Balls in the draughty 
 Assembly Rooms. With the best intentions she 
 had never managed to enjoy them. The first 
 hour was well enough, but after that came in- 
 creasing listlessness and boredom; the effort, 
 when one danced again with the same partner, 
 not to say the same things, combined with the 
 obligation to say something rather like them, 
 the control of eyelids, the conversion of yawns 
 into smiles, the humbling consciousness that there 
 was nothing to look forward to except the drive 
 home. ‘That was pleasant, and so was the fillip 
 of supper at the drive’s end, and the relief of 
 yielding at last to an unfeigned hunger and 
 sleepiness. But these were by-blow joys; of 
 the delights for which balls are ordained she 
 knew nothing. | 
 
 She watched the dancers go by and wondered 
 
 194 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 what the enchantment was which they felt and 
 she could not. What made them come out in 
 the middle of the night, loop paper garlands 
 over the trees, light a row of candles in the 
 ditch, and then, friends and enemies and indif- 
 ferents, go bumping round on the rough grass? 
 That fatal comparison with the Primrose League 
 recurred to her. She was not entertained, so 
 she blamed the entertainment. But the fault 
 lay with her, she had never been good at parties, 
 she had not got the proper Sabbath-keeping 
 spirit. Miss Larpent was enjoying herself; 
 Laura saw the bonnet whisk past. But doubt- 
 less Miss Larpent had enjoyed herself at Cowes. 
 
 ‘These depressing thoughts were interrupted 
 by red-haired Emily, who came spinning from 
 her partner’s arms, seized hold of Laura and 
 carried her back into the dance. Laura liked 
 dancing with Emily; the pasty-faced anc 
 anaemic young slattern whom she had scen 
 dawdling about the village danced with a fer- 
 vour that annihilated every misgiving. They 
 whirled faster and faster, fused together lke 
 two suns that whirl and blaze in a single destruc- 
 tion. A strand of the red hair came undone and 
 brushed across Laura’s face. “The contact made 
 her tingle from head to foot. She shut her eyes 
 
 195 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 and dived into obliviousness—with Emily for a 
 partner she could dance until the gunpowder 
 ran out of the heels of her boots. Alas! this 
 happy ending was not to be, for at the height of 
 their performance Emily was snatched away by 
 Mr. Jowl, the horse-doctor. Laura opened her 
 eyes and saw the pale face disappearing in the 
 throng as the moon sinks into the clouds. 
 
 Emily was in great request, and no wonder. 
 Like a torch she was handed on from one to 
 another, and every mutation shook down some 
 more hair. ‘The Sabbath was warming up 
 nicely now, every one was jigging it, even 
 Laura. For a while Mrs. Leak kept up a 
 semblance of chaperonage. Suddenly appear- 
 ing at Laura’s elbow she would ask her if she 
 Were enjoying herself, and glancing at her 
 would slip away before she could answer. Or 
 with vague gestures she indicated some evasively 
 bowing partner, male or female; and silently 
 Laura would give her hand and be drawn into 
 the dance, presently to be relinquished or car- 
 ried off by some one else. 
 
 ‘The etiquette of a Sabbath appeared to con- 
 sist of one rule only: to do nothing for long. 
 Partners came and went, figures and conforma- 
 tions were in a continual flux. Sometimes the 
 
 196 
 
0 . 
 LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 dancers were coupled, sometimes they jigged in 
 a circle round some specially agile performer, 
 sometimes they all took hands and galloped about 
 the field. Half-way through a very formal 
 quadrille presided over by the Misses Larpent 
 they fell abruptly to playing Fox and Geese. 
 In spite of Mr. Gurdon’s rosette there was no 
 Master of Ceremonies. A single mysterious 
 impulse seemed to govern the company. ‘They 
 wheeled and manceuvred like a flock of starlings. 
 After an hour or two of this Laura felt dizzy 
 and bewildered. ‘Taking advantage of the gen- 
 eral lack of formality she tore herself from 
 Mr. Gurdon’s arms, not to dance with another, 
 but to slip away and sit quietly in the hedge. 
 She wondered where the music came from. 
 She had heard it quite clearly as she came over 
 the hill, but upon entering the field she had 
 lost it. Now as she watched the others she 
 heard it once more. When they neared it grew 
 louder, when they retreated into the darkness it 
 faded with them, as though the sound issued 
 from the dancers themselves, and hung, a dron- 
 ing exhalation, above their heads. It was an 
 odd kind of music, a continuous high shapeless 
 blurr of sound. It was something like mosqui- 
 toes in a hot bedroom, and something like a 
 
 197 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 distant threshing machine. But besides this, it 
 had a faintly human quality, a metallic breath- 
 ing as of trombones marking the measure; and 
 when the dancers took hands and revolved in a 
 leaping circle the music leaped and pounded 
 with them, so much like the steam-organ music 
 of a merry-go-round that for a moment Laura 
 thought that they were riding on horses and 
 dragons, bobbing up and down on crested 
 dragons with heads like cocks, and horses with 
 blood-red nostrils. 
 
 ‘The candles burnt on in the dry ditch. 
 Though the boughs of the thorn-trees moved 
 above them and grated in the night-wind, the 
 candle flames flowed steadily upwards. ‘Thus 
 lit from below, the dancers seemed of more than 
 human stature, their bodies extending into the 
 darkness as if in emulation of their gigantic 
 upcast shadows. ‘The air was full of the smell 
 of bruised grass. 
 
 Mrs. Leak had forgotten Laura now. She 
 was dancing the Highland Schottische with a 
 lean young man whose sleeves were rolled up 
 over his tattooed forearms. ‘The nails in his 
 boots shone in the candle-light, and a lock of 
 hair hung over his eye. Mrs. Leak danced very 
 well. Her feet flickered to and fro as nimbly | 
 
 198 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 as a tongue. At the turn of the figure she 
 tripped forward to be caught up and swung 
 round on the young man’s arm. ‘Though her 
 feet were off the ground they twitched with the 
 movements of the dance, and set down again 
 they took up the uninterrupted measure. Laura 
 watched her with admiration. Even at a 
 Witches’ Sabbath Mrs. Leak lost none of her 
 respectability. Her white apron was scarcely 
 crumpled, she was as self-contained as a cat 
 watching a mouse, and her eyes dwelt upon the 
 young man’s face as though she were listening 
 to a sermon. 
 
 She preserved her dignity better than some of 
 the others did. Mr. Gurdon stood by himself, 
 stamping his foot and tossing his head, more like 
 the farmer’s bull than ever. Miss Carloe was 
 begging people to look at the hole in her leg 
 where the hedgehog sucked her; and red-haired 
 Emily, half-naked and holding a candle in either 
 hand, danced round a tree, curtseying to it, her 
 mouth fixed in a breathless corpse-like grin. 
 
 Miss Minnie and Miss Jane had also changed 
 their demeanour for the worse. ‘They sat a 
 little retired from the dancers, tearing up a cold 
 grouse and gossiping with Mrs. Dewey the mid- 
 wife. A horrible curiosity stretched their skinny 
 
 cy kes 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 old necks. Miss Minnie had forgotten to gnaw 
 her grouse, she leant forward, her hand covered 
 the lower half of her face to conceal the work- 
 ings of her mouth. -Miss Jane listened as 
 eagerly, and questioned the midwife. But at 
 the answers she turned away with coquettish 
 shudders, pretending to stop her ears, or. threat- 
 ening to slap her sister with a bone. 
 
 Laura averted her eyes. She wriggled herself 
 a little further into the hedge. Once again the 
 dancers veered away to the further side of the 
 field, their music retreating with them. She 
 hoped they would stay away, for their proximity 
 was disturbing. ‘They aroused in her neither 
 fear nor disgust, but when they came close, and 
 she felt their shadows darkening above her head, 
 a nameless excitement caught hold of her. As 
 they departed, heaviness took its place. She was 
 not in the least sleepy and yet several times she 
 found herself astray from her thoughts, as 
 though she were falling asleep in a train. She 
 wondered what time it was and looked up to. 
 consult the stars. But a featureless cloud cov- 
 ered the sky. 
 
 Laura resigned herself. ‘There was nothing 
 to do but to wait, though what she waited for 
 she did not know: whether at length Mrs. 
 
 200 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Leak would come, like a chaperone from the 
 supper-room, and say: ‘Well, my dear, I really 
 must take you home,—or if, suddenly, at the 
 first cock-crow, all the company would rise up 
 in the air, a darkening bevy, and disperse, and 
 she with them. 
 
 She was roused by a shrill whistle. ‘The 
 others heard it too.. Miss Minnie and Miss 
 Jane scrambled up and hurried across the field, 
 outdistancing Mrs. Dewey, who followed them 
 panting for breath and twitching her skirts over 
 the rough ground. ‘The music had stopped. 
 Laura saw all the witches and warlocks jostling 
 each other, and pressing into a circle. She 
 wondered what was happening now. Whatever 
 it was, it seemed to please and excite them a 
 great deal, for she could hear them all laugh- 
 ing and talking at once. Some newcomer, she 
 supposed—for their behaviour was that of wel- 
 come. Now the newcomer must be making a” 
 speech, for they all became silent: a successful 
 speech, for the silence was broken by acclama- 
 tions, and bursts of laughter. 
 
 “Of course!” said Laura. “It must be 
 Satan!” 
 
 As she spoke she saw the distant group turn 
 and, with one accord begin running towards 
 
 201 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 where she sat. She got up; she felt frightened, 
 for their advance was like a stampede of 
 animals, and she feared that they would knock 
 her down and trample her underfoot. ‘The first 
 runner had already swooped upon her, she felt 
 herself encompassed, caught hold of, and car- 
 ried forward. Voices addressed her, but she 
 did not understand what was said. She gathered 
 that she was being encouraged and congratu- 
 lated, as though the neglectful assembly had 
 suddenly decided to make much of the unsuccess- 
 ful guest. Presently she found herself between 
 Mrs. Leak and red-haired Emily. Each held 
 an arm. Mrs. Leak patted her encouragingly, 
 and Emily whispered rapidly, incoherently, in 
 her ear. ‘They were quite close to the new- 
 comer, Satan, if it were he, who was talking to 
 Miss Minnie and Miss Jane. Laura looked at 
 him. She could see him quite clearly, for those 
 who stood round had taken up the candles to 
 light him. He was standing with his back to 
 her, speaking with great animation to the old 
 ladies, bowing, and fidgeting his feet. As he 
 spoke he threw out his hands, and his whole lean, 
 lithe body seemed to be scarcely withheld from 
 breaking into a dance. Laura saw Miss Jane 
 202 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 point at her, and the stranger turned sharply 
 round. 
 
 She saw his face. For a moment she thought 
 that he was a Chinaman; then she saw that he 
 was wearing a mask. ‘The candle-light shone 
 full upon it, but so fine and slight was the 
 modelling that scarcely a shadow marked the 
 indentations of cheek and jaw. ‘The narrow 
 eyes, the slanting brows, the small smiling mouth 
 had a vivid innocent inexpressiveness. It was 
 like the face of a very young girl. Alert and 
 immobile the mask regarded her. And she, 
 entranced, stared back at this imitation face that 
 outwitted all perfections of flesh and blood. It 
 was lifeless, lifeless! But below it, in the hol- 
 low of the girlish throat, she saw a flicker of 
 life, a small regular pulse, small and regular 
 as though a pearl necklace slid by under the 
 skin. Mincing like a girl, the masked young 
 man approached her, and as he approached the 
 others drew back and left her alone. With 
 secretive and undulating movements he came to 
 her side. ‘The lifeless face was near her own 
 and through the slits in the mask the unseen 
 eyes surveyed her. Suddenly she felt upon her 
 cheeks a cold darting touch. With a fine 
 
 203 
 
LOLLY WILTOWES 
 
 tongue like a serpent’s he had licked her right 
 cheek, close to the ear. She started back, but 
 found his hands detaining her. 
 
 “How are you enjoying your first Sabbath, 
 Miss Willowes?” he said. 
 
 “Not at all,” answered Laura, and turned her 
 back on him. | 
 
 Without glancing to left or right she walked 
 out of the field, and the dancers made way for 
 her in silence. She was furious at the affront, 
 raging at Satan, at Mrs. Leak, at Miss Larpent, 
 with the unreasoning anger of a woman who has 
 allowed herself to be put in a false position. 
 This was what came of attending Sabbaths, or 
 rather, this was what came of submitting her 
 good sense to politeness. Hours ago her instinct 
 had told her that she was not going to enjoy 
 herself. If she had asserted herself and gone 
 home then, this odious and petty insult would 
 never have happened. But she had stayed on, 
 deferring to a public opinion that was not con- 
 cerned whether she stayed or went, stayed on 
 just as she used to stay on at balls, stayed on to 
 be treated like a silly girl who at the end of a 
 mechanical flirtation is kissed behind a palm. 
 
 Anyway, she was out of it now. Her feet 
 had followed the windings of a little path, 
 
 204 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 which crossed a ditch by a plank bridge: it passed 
 through a belt of woodland, and led her out 
 on to a space of common that sloped away into 
 the darkness. Here she sat down and spread 
 out her palms’ upon the cool turf. 
 
 She had been insulted and made a mock of. 
 But for all that she did not feel truly humiliated. 
 Rather, she was filled with a delighted and 
 scornful surprise at the ease with which she had 
 avenged her dignity. “The mask floated before 
 her eyes, inscrutable as ever, and she thought 
 no more of it than of an egg-shell that she 
 could crush between her finger and thumb. 
 ‘The Powers of Darkness, then, were no more 
 fearful than a herd of bullocks in a field? 
 Once round upon them and the sniffing encum- 
 bering horde made off, a scramble of ungainly 
 rumps and foolish tails. 
 
 It had been a surprising night. And long, 
 endlessly long, and not ended yet. She yawned, 
 and felt hungry. She fancied herself at home, 
 cutting large crumbling slices from the loaf in 
 the cupboard, and spreading them with a great 
 deal of butter and the remains of the shrimp 
 paste. But she did not know where she was, 
 and it was too dark to venture homewards with 
 no sense of direction. She grew impatient with 
 
 205 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 the night and strained her ears for the sound 
 of cock-crow. As if her imperious will had 
 wrenched aside the covering of cloud, a faint 
 glimmer delineated part of the horizon. Moon- 
 set or sunrise, westerly or easterly she did not 
 know; but as she watched it doubtfully, think- 
 ing that it must be moonset, for it seemed to 
 dwindle rather than increase, a breeze winnowed 
 the air, and looking round her she saw on every 
 side the first beginnings of light. 
 
 Sitting up, her hunger and sleepiness forgot- 
 ten, and all the disappointments and enigmas of 
 the Sabbath dismissed from her mind, she 
 watched the spectacle of the dawn. Soon she 
 was able to recognise her surroundings, she knew 
 the place well, it was here that she had met 
 the badger. The slope before her was dotted 
 with close-fitting juniper bushes, and presently 
 she saw a rabbit steal out from one of these, 
 twitch its ears, and scamper off. ‘The cloud 
 which covered the sky was no longer a solid 
 thing. It was rising, and breaking up into 
 swirls of vapour that yielded to the wind. ‘The 
 growing day washed them with silver. Every 
 moment the web of cloud seemed to rise higher 
 and higher, as though borne upward by a rising 
 tide of light. “The rooks flew up cawing from 
 
 206 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 the wood. Presently she heard the snap of a 
 dead twig. Somebody was astir. Whistling to 
 himself, a man came out of the wood. He 
 walked with a peculiarly slow and easy gait, 
 and he had a:stick in his hand, an untrimmed 
 rod pulled from the wood. He switched at the 
 head of a tall thistle, and Laura saw the dew 
 fly off the astonished blossom. Seeing her, he 
 stopped short, as though he did not wish to in- 
 trude on her. He showed no surprise that she 
 should be sitting on the hillside, waiting for the 
 sun to rise. She smiled at him, grateful for his 
 good manners, and also quite pleased to see a 
 reasonable being again; and emboldened by this, 
 he smiled also, and approached. 
 
 “You are up very early, Miss Willowes.” 
 
 She did not recognise him, but that was no 
 reason why he should not recognise her. She 
 thought he must be a gamekeeper, for he wore 
 gaiters and a corduroy coat. His face was 
 brown and wrinkled, and his teeth were as white 
 and even as a dog’s. Laura liked his appear- 
 ance. He had a pleasant, rather detached air, 
 _ which suited well with the early morning. She 
 said: 
 
 “T have been up all night.” 
 
 There was no inquisitiveness in his look; and 
 
 207 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 when he expressed the hope that she felt none 
 the worse for it, he spoke without servility or 
 covert amusement. 
 
 “T liked it very much,” said Laura. Her 
 regard for truth made her add: “Particu- 
 larly when it began to be light. I was growing 
 rather bored before then.” 
 
 “Some ladies would feel afraid,” said he. 
 
 “T’m not afraid when I’m alone,” she an- 
 swered. “I lived in the country when I was 
 a girl.” 
 
 He bowed his head assentingly. Something 
 in his manner implied that he knew this already. 
 Perhaps he had heard about her in the vil- 
 lage. 
 
 “It’s pleasant to be in the country again,” 
 she continued. “T like Great Mop very much.” 
 
 “T hope you will stay here, Miss Willowes.” 
 
 “I hope so too.” 
 
 She spoke a little sadly. In this unaccustomed 
 hour her soul was full of doubts. She wondered 
 if, having flouted the Sabbath, she were still a 
 witch, or whether, her power being taken from 
 her, she would become the prey of a healthy 
 and untroubled Titus. And being faint for 
 want of food and want of sleep, she foreboded 
 the worst. 
 
 208 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “Yes, you must stay here. It would be a 
 pity to go now.” 
 
 Laura nearly said, “I have nowhere to go,” 
 but a dread of exile came over her like a salt 
 wave, and she could not trust herself to speak 
 to this kind man. He came nearer and said: 
 
 “Remember, Miss Willowes, that I shall 
 always be very glad to help you. You have 
 only to ask me.” 
 
 “But where shall I find you?” she asked, too 
 much impressed by the kindness of his words to 
 think them strange. 
 
 “You will always find me in the wood,” he 
 answered, and touching his cap he walked away. 
 She heard the noise of swishing branches and 
 the scuff of feet among dead leaves growing 
 fainter as he went further into the wood. 
 
 She decided not to go back just yet. A com- 
 fortable drowsiness settled down upon her with 
 the first warmth of the risen sun. Her mind 
 dwelt upon the words just spoken. ‘The promise 
 had been given in such sober earnestness that 
 she had accepted it without question, seeing 
 nothing improbable in the idea that she should 
 require the help of a strange gamekeeper, or that 
 he should undertake to give it. She thought 
 that people might be different in the early 
 
 209 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 morning; less shy, like the rabbits that were 
 playing round her, more open-hearted, and 
 simpler of speech. In any case, she was grate- 
 ful to the stranger for his goodwill. He had 
 known that she wanted to stay on at Great Mop, 
 he had told her that she must do so. It was 
 the established country courtesy, the invitation 
 to take root. But he must have meant what he 
 said, for seeing her troubled he had offered to 
 help. Perhaps he was married; and if Mrs. 
 Leak, offended, would keep her no longer, she 
 might lodge with him and his wife in their 
 cottage, a cottage in a dell among the beech- 
 woods. He had said that he lived in the woods. 
 She began to picture her life in such a cottage, 
 thinking that it would be even better than 
 lodging in the village. She imagined her white- 
 washed bedroom full of moving green shades; 
 the wood-smoke curling up among the trees; 
 the majestic arms, swaying above her while she 
 slept, and plumed with snow in winter. 
 
 ‘The trees behind her murmured consolingly; 
 she reclined upon the sound. ‘“‘Remember, Miss 
 Willowes” . . . “Remember,” murmured the 
 trees, swaying their boughs muffled with heavy 
 foliage. She remembered, and _ understood. 
 When he came out of the wood, dressed like a 
 
 210 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 gamekeeper, and speaking so quietly and simply, 
 Satan had come to renew his promise and to 
 reassure her. He had put on this shape that 
 she might not fear him. Or would he have her 
 to know that ‘to those who serve him he appears 
 no longer as a hunter, but as a guardian? ‘This 
 was the real Satan. And as for the other, 
 whom her spirit had so impetuously disowned, 
 she had done well to disown him, for he was 
 nothing but an impostor, a charlatan, a dummy. 
 
 Her doubts were laid to rest, and she walked 
 back through the fields, picking mushrooms as 
 she went. As she approached the village she 
 heard Mr. Saunter’s cocks crowing, and saw the 
 other cock, for ever watchful, for ever silent, 
 spangle in the sun above the church tower. “he 
 churchyard yews cast long shadows like open 
 graves. Behind those white curtains slum- 
 bered Mr. Jones, and dreamed, perhaps, of 
 the Sabbath which he was not allowed to 
 attend. 
 
 As Laura passed through Mrs. Leak’s garden 
 she remembered her first morning as a witch 
 when she had gone out to give the kitten a run. 
 The sunflowers had been cut off and given to 
 the hens, but the scrubbing-brush was still 
 propped on the kitchen window-sill. “That was 
 
 ! 211 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 three weeks ago. And Titus, like the scrub- 
 bing-brush, was still there. 
 
 During those three weeks Titus had de- 
 manded a great deal of support; in fact, being 
 a witch-aunt was about twice as taxing as be- 
 ing an ordinary aunt, and if she had not known 
 that the days were numbered she could scarcely 
 have endured them. 
 
 At her nephew’s request she made veils of 
 butter-muslin weighed with blue beads to pro- 
 tect his food and drink. ‘Titus insisted that the 
 beads should be blue: blue was the colour of. 
 the Immaculate Conception; and as pious Conti- 
 nental mothers dedicate their children, so he 
 would dedicate his milk and hope for the best. 
 But no blue beads were to be found in the vil- 
 lage, so Laura had to walk into Barleighs for 
 them. ‘Titus was filled with gratitude, he came 
 round on purpose to thank her and stayed to tea. 
 
 He was no sooner gone than Mrs. Garland 
 arrived. Mrs. Garland had seen the veils. She 
 hoped that Mr. Willowes didn’t think she was 
 to blame for the milk going sour. She could 
 assure Miss Willowes that the jugs were mopped 
 out with boiling water morning and evening. 
 For her part, she couldn’t understand it at all. 
 She was always anxious to give satisfaction, she 
 
 212 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 said; but her manner suggested less anxiety 
 to give than to receive. Laura soothed Mrs. 
 Garland, and sat down to wait for Mr. Dod- 
 bury. However, Mr. Dodbury contented him- 
 self with frowning at that interfering young 
 Willowes’s aunt, and turning the bull into the 
 footpath field. Laura thought that the bull 
 frowned too. 
 
 ‘Though veiled in butter-muslin, the milk 
 continued to curdle. ‘Titus came in to say that 
 he’d had an idea; in future, he would rely 
 upon condensed milk out of a tin. Which sort 
 did Aunt Lolly recommend? And would she 
 make him a kettle-holder? Apparently tinned 
 milk could resist the Devil, for all was peace 
 until ‘Titus gashed his thumb on the raw edge 
 ofatin. In spite of Laura’s first aid the wound 
 festered, and for several days Titus wore a 
 sling. Triumphant over pain he continued the 
 Life of Fuseli. But the wounded thumb be- 
 ing a right-hand thumb, the triumph involved 
 an amanuensis. Laura hated ink, she marvelled 
 that any one should have the constancy to write 
 a whole book. She thought of Paradise Lost 
 with a shudder, for it required even more con- 
 stancy to write some one else’s book. Highly 
 as she rated the sufferings of Milton’s daughters, 
 
 213 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 she rated her own even higher, for she did not 
 suppose that they had to be for ever jumping up 
 and down to light the poet’s cigarette; and blank 
 verse flowed, flowed majestically, she understood, 
 from his lips, whereas ‘Titus dictated in prose, 
 which was far harder to punctuate. 
 
 Nor did it flow. Titus was not feeling at 
 his best. He hated small bothers, and of late 
 he had been seethed alive in them. Every day 
 something went wrong, some fiddle-faddle little 
 thing. All his ingenuity was wasted in cir- 
 cumyvention; he had none left for Fuseli. 
 
 Anyhow, dictation was only fit for oil-kings! 
 He jumped up and dashed about the room with 
 a fly-flap. Fly-flapping was a manly indoor 
 sport, especially if one observed all the rules. 
 The ceiling was marked out in squares like a 
 chess-board, and while they stayed in their 
 squares the flies could not be attacked. ‘The 
 triangle described by the blue vase, the pink vase, 
 and the hanging lamp was a Yellowstone Park, 
 and so was the King’s Face, a difficult ruling, 
 but Titus had decided that of two evils it was 
 more tolerable that the royal countenance should 
 be crawled over by flies than assaulted by the 
 subject. All this from a left-handed adversary 
 —the flies had nothing to complain of, in his 
 
 214 ) 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 opinion. Laura owned his generosity, and sat, 
 when she could, in the Yellowstone Park. 
 
 By the time Titus had recovered the use of 
 his right hand the flies had lost their sanctuaries 
 one by one, and could not even call the King’s 
 Face their own. ‘They swarmed in his sitting- 
 room, attracted, Mrs. Garland supposed, by the 
 memory of that nasty foreign cheese Mr. 
 Willowes’s Mr. Humphries had brought with 
 him when he came to stay. They swarmed in 
 his bedroom also, and that—Mrs. Garland said 
 —was what brought in the bats. Laura told 
 Titus the belief that if a bat once entangles it- 
 self in a woman’s flowing hair there is no rem- 
 edy but to cut away hair and bat together. 
 ‘Titus turned pale. ‘That afternoon he went up 
 to London to visit his hairdresser, and returned 
 with hair cropped like a convict’s. 
 
 All this had unsettled her victim a good deal; 
 but it had not unseated him, and meanwhile it 
 was sufficiently unsettling for her. So far, she 
 thought, the scheme and its execution had been 
 the kitten’s—she could recognise Vinegar’s 
 playful methods. She gave him credit for do- 
 ing his best. But he was young and inexperi- 
 enced, this was probably his first attempt at 
 serious persecution; it was not to be wondered 
 
 215 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 at if his methods were a little sketchy. Now 
 that the Devil had taken matters into his own 
 hands—and of this she felt assured—all would 
 soon be well. Well for her, well for Titus. 
 Really, it was time that poor boy was released 
 from his troubles. She felt complete confi- 
 dence in the Devil, a confidence that the kitten 
 had never inspired. ‘There was a tinge of 
 gratuitous malice in Vinegar’s character; he 
 was, as one says, rather a cat. She suspected 
 him of meditating a scratch which would give 
 Titus blood-poisoning. She remembered with 
 uneasiness what cats are said to do to sleeping 
 infants, and every night she was careful to im- 
 prison Vinegar in her bedroom, a useless pre- 
 caution since he had come in by the keyhole and 
 might as easily go out by it. ‘The Devil would 
 get rid of Titus more speedily, more kindly 
 (he had no reason to be anything but kind: she 
 could not imagine Titus being of the smallest 
 interest to Satan), more economically. There 
 would be no catastrophe, no pantechnicon dis- 
 plays of flood or fire. He would proceed dis- 
 creetly and surely, like a gamekeeper going his 
 rounds by night; he would remove ‘Titus 
 as imperturbably as Dunlop had removed 
 the beech-leaf. She could sit back quite com- 
 216 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 fortably now, and wait for it to happen. 
 
 When Titus next appeared and complained 
 that he had been kept awake for two nights 
 running by a mouse gnawing the leg of his bed- 
 stead, Laura was most helpful. They went to 
 Mrs. Trumpet’s to buy a mouse-trap, but as 
 Mrs. Trumpet only kept cheese they walked 
 very pleasantly by field-paths into Barleighs, 
 where Denby’s stores had a larger range of 
 groceries. During their walk ‘Titus recalled 
 anecdotes illustrative of mice from Soup from 
 a Sausage Peg, and propounded a scheme for 
 defending his bed by a catskin valance. ‘The 
 day was fine, and at intervals Titus would stop 
 and illustrate the landscape with possessive 
 gestures. 
 
 He was particularly happy. He had not 
 enjoyed himself so much for some time. ‘The 
 milk and the mice and the flies had checked his 
 Spirits; he was not doing justice to Fuseli, and 
 when he went out for long.encouraging walks 
 an oppressed feeling went with him. ‘Twice 
 or thrice he had felt horribly frightened, 
 though at what he could not tell. “The noise 
 of two iron hurdles grating against each other 
 in the wind, a dead tree with branches that 
 looked like antlers, the stealthy movement of 
 
 a7 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 the sun towards the horizon: quite ordinary 
 things like these were able to disquiet him. 
 
 He fell into the habit of talking aloud to 
 himself. He would reason with appearances. 
 “T see you, old Horny,” he said to the dead tree. 
 And once, as dusk pursued him homeward, he 
 began repeating: 
 
 As one that on a lonesome road 
 Doth walk in fear and dread, 
 
 And having once turned round, walks on, 
 And turns no more his head; 
 
 Because he knows a frightful fiend 
 Doth close behind him tread: 
 
 when the sound of a crackling twig made every 
 nerve in his body stiffen with terror. Some 
 impulse not his own snatched him round in the 
 path, only to see old Luxmoor going out with 
 his snares. Old Luxmoor touched his cap and 
 grinned in an embarrassed way. Every one 
 knew that Luxmoor poached, but it was not- 
 polite to catch him at it. He did not appear 
 to have overheard ‘Titus or noticed his start of 
 terror. But there had been one instant before 
 recognition when Titus had almost known what 
 he dreaded to see. 
 
 So it was pleasant to find that the company 
 
 218 
 
LOLUY wrelLowes 
 
 of his aunt could exorcise these ghostly enmities. 
 Clearly, there was nothing in it. To-morrow 
 he would go for a long walk by himself. 
 
 Laura also went for a walk that afternoon. 
 It was a hot day, so hot and still that it felt 
 like a Sunday. She could not do better than 
 follow the example of the savages in Robinson 
 Crusoe: go up on to a hill-top and say O! No 
 pious savage could have ejaculated O! more 
 devoutly than she did; for the hill-top was 
 scattered over with patches of that small honey- 
 scented flower called Tailors’ Needles, and in 
 conjunction with the austere outlines of the 
 landscape this perfume was exquisitely sweet 
 and surprising. She found a little green pit 
 and sat down in it, leaning her back against the 
 short firm turf. Ensconced in her private 
 warmth and stillness she had almost fallen 
 asleep when a moving figure on the opposite 
 hillside caught her attention. lLaura’s grey 
 eyes were very keen-sighted, she soon recog- 
 nised that long stride and swinging gait. “The 
 solitary walker was ‘Titus. 
 
 ‘There is an amusing sense of superiority in 
 seeing and remaining unseen. Laura sat up in 
 her form and watched ‘Titus attentively. He 
 looked very small, human, and scrabbly, travers- 
 
 219 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 ing that imperturbable surface. With such a 
 large slope to wander upon, it was faintly comic 
 to see Titus keeping so neatly to the path; the 
 effect was rather as if he were being taken for 
 a walk upon a string. 
 
 Further on the path was lost in a tangle 
 of brambles and rusty foxglove stems which 
 marked the site of Folly Wood, a larch planta- 
 tion cut down during the war. In her map 
 the wood had still been green. She had looked 
 for it on one of her early explorations, and not 
 finding it had felt defrauded. Her eyes now 
 dwelt on the bramble tangle with annoyance. 
 It was untidy, and fretted the hillside like a 
 handful of rough-cast thrown on to a smooth 
 wall. She turned back her gaze to see how 
 Titus was getting on. It struck her that he 
 was behaving rather oddly. ‘Though he kept 
 to the path he was walking almost lke a 
 drunken man or an idiot, now hurrying his 
 pace, now reforming it into a staid deliberation 
 that was certainly not his natural gait. Quite 
 abruptly he began to run. He ran faster and 
 faster, his feet striving on the slippery turf. 
 He reached the outskirts of Folly Wood, and 
 Laura could gauge the roughness of the going 
 from his leaps and stumbles. Midway through 
 
 220 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 the wood he staggered and fell full-length. 
 
 “A rabbit-hole,” she said. “Now I suppose 
 he’s sprained his ankle.” 
 
 But before any thought of compunction 
 could mitigate the rather scornful bewilderment 
 with which she had been a spectator of these 
 antics, Titus was up again, and behaving more 
 oddly than ever. No amount of sprained ankle 
 could warrant those raving gestures with which 
 he beat himself, and beat the air. He seemed 
 to be fending off an invisible volley-of fisticuffs, 
 for now he ducked his head, now he leaped to 
 one side, now he threatened, now he quailed 
 before a fresh attack. At last he made off 
 with shambling speed, reeling and gesticulating 
 as though his whole body bellowed with pain 
 and fear. He reached the summit of the 
 hill; for a moment he was silhouetted against 
 the sky-line in a final convulsion of distress; 
 then he was gone. 
 
 Laura felt as if she were releasing her gaze 
 from a telescope. Her glance strayed about 
 the landscape. She frowned and looked in- 
 quiringly from side to side, not able to credit 
 her eyes. Blandly unconscious, the opposite 
 hillside confronted her with its familiar face. 
 A religious silence filled the valley. As the 
 
 221 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 untroubled air had received ‘Titus’s roarings 
 and damnings (for it was obvious that he had 
 both roared and damned) without concerning 
 itself to transmit them to her hearing, so her 
 vision had absorbed his violent pantomime with- 
 out concerning itself to alarm her brain. She 
 could not reason about what she had seen; she 
 could scarcely stir herself to feel any curiosity, 
 and still less any sympathy. Like a masque of 
 bears and fantastic shapes, it had seemed 
 framed only to surprise and delight. 
 
 But that, she knew, was not Satan’s way. 
 He was not in the habit of bestowing these 
 gratuitous peep-shows upon his servants, he was 
 above the human weakness of doing things for 
 fun; and if he exhibited ‘Titus dancing upon 
 the hillside like a cat on hot bricks, she might 
 be sure that it was all according to plan. It 
 behoved her to be serious and attend, instead of 
 accepting it all in this spirit of blank entertain-. 
 ment. Even as a matter of bare civility 
 she ought to find out what had happened. Be- 
 sides, “Titus might require her ministrations. 
 She got up, and began to walk back to the vil- 
 lage. 
 
 ‘Titus, she reflected, would almost certainly 
 have gone home. Even if he did not run all 
 
 222 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 the way he would by now have had time to 
 settle down and get over the worst of his dis- 
 turbance. A kind of decency forbade her to 
 view too immediately the dismay of her victim. 
 Titus unmenaced, ‘Titus invading her quiet and 
 straddling over her peace of mind, was a very 
 different thing from Titus melting and squirm- 
 ing before the fire of her resentment. Now 
 that she was walking to his assistance she felt 
 quite sorry for him. ‘y nephew who is 
 plagued by the Devil was as much an object for 
 affectionate aunt-like interest as my nephew 
 who has an attack of measles. She did not take 
 the present affliction more seriously than she had 
 taken those of the past. With time, and a 
 change of air, she was confident that he would 
 make a complete recovery. 
 
 As for her own share in the matter, she felt 
 no shame at all. It had pleased Satan to come 
 to her aid. Considering carefully, she did not 
 see who else would have done so. Custom, 
 public opinion, law, church, and_ state—all 
 would have shaken their massive heads against 
 her plea, and sent her back to bondage. 
 
 She reached Great Mop about five o’clock. 
 As she turned up Mrs, Leak’s garden-path, 
 Titus bounded from the porch. 
 
 229 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “There you are!” he exclaimed. “We have 
 just come to have tea with you.” 
 
 She perceived that Titus was not alone. In 
 the porch playing with the kitten was Pandora 
 Williams, Pandora Williams whom ‘Titus had 
 invited to play the rebeck at the Flower Show. — 
 Before Laura could welcome her Titus was 
 exclaiming again. 
 
 “Such an afternoon as I’ve had. Such ad- 
 ventures! First I fell into a wasps’-nest, and 
 then I got engaged to Pandora.” 
 
 So that was it. It was wasps. Wasps were 
 the invisible enemies that had beset and routed 
 him on the hill-side. O Beelzebub, God of 
 flies! But why was he now going to marry 
 Pandora Williams? 
 
 “The wops-nest was in Folly Wood. I 
 tripped up, and fell smack on top of it. My 
 God, I thought I should die! They got into 
 my ears, and down my neck, and up my trou- 
 sers, they were everywhere, as thick as spikes 
 in soda-water. I ran for my life, I ran nearly 
 all the way home, and most of them came with 
 me, either inside or out. And when I rushed 
 up the street calling in an exhausted voice for 
 onions, there was Pandora!” 
 
 bee 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 “T had been invited to tea,” said Pandora 
 rather primly. 
 
 “Yes, and I’d forgotten it, and gone out for 
 a walk. Pandora, if ’d had my deserts, you 
 would have scorned me, and left me to perish. 
 Pandora, I shall never forget your magnani- 
 mous way of behaving. “That was what did 
 it really. One has to offer marriage to a young 
 woman who has picked dead wasps out of one’s 
 armpit.” 
 
 Laura had never seen Titus so excited. His 
 face was flushed, his voice was loud, the pupils 
 of his eyes were extraordinarily dilated. But 
 how much of this was due to love and how 
 much to wasps and witchcraft it was impossible 
 to say. And was Pandora part of the witch- 
 craft too, a sort of queen wasp whose sting was 
 mortal balm? Why should Titus offer her 
 marriage? Why should Pandora accept it? 
 They had always been such friends. 
 
 Laura turned to the girl to see how she was 
 taking it. Pandora’s smooth cheeks and smooth 
 lappets of black hair seemed to shed calm like 
 an unwavering beam of moonlight. But at 
 Laura’s good wishes she started, and began nerv- 
 ously to counter them with explanations and 
 
 205 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 apologies for coming to Laura’s rooms for tea. 
 She had dropped ‘Titus’s teapot, and broken it. 
 Laura was not surprised that she had dropped 
 the teapot. It was clear to her that Pandora’s 
 emotions that afternoon had been much more 
 vehement than anything that Titus had experi- 
 enced in his mental uproar. How well— 
 thought Laura—she has hidden her feelings all 
 this time! How well she is hiding them now! 
 
 These fine natures, she knew, always found 
 comfort in cutting bread-and-butter. Pandora 
 welcomed the suggestion. She covered three 
 large plates, and would have covered a fourth 
 if the butter had not given out. There were 
 some ginger-bread nuts as well, and a few 
 bull’s-eyes. Mrs. Leak must have surmised a 
 romance. She marked her sense of the occa- 
 sion by the tea, which was almost purple—as_ 
 strong as wedding-cake, ‘Titus said. 
 
 It was a savagely plain tea. But had it con- 
 sisted of cocoa and ship’s-biscuit, Laura might 
 have offered it without a qualm to guests so 
 much absorbed by their proper emotions. ‘Titus 
 talked incessantly, and Pandora ate with the 
 stealthy persistence of a bitch that gives suck. 
 Meanwhile Laura looked at the new Mr. and 
 Mrs. Willowes. ‘They would do very well, 
 
 226 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 she decided. Young as she was, Pandora had 
 already the air of a family portrait; such looks, 
 such characters change little, for they are inde- 
 pendent of time. And undoubtedly she was 
 very much in love with Titus. While he 
 talked she watched his face with the utmost at- 
 tention, though she did not seem to hear what 
 he was saying. ‘Titus, too, must be consider- 
 ably in love. Despite the unreality of his be- 
 haviour, and a swelled nose, his happiness gave 
 him an almost romantic appearance. Perhaps 
 it was that too recently she had seen him danc- 
 ing on the Devil’s strings to be able to take him 
 quite seriously; perhaps she was old-maidishly 
 scornful of the authenticity of anything that a 
 man may say or do; but at the back of her mind 
 Laura felt that Titus was but a proxy wooer, 
 the ambassador of an imperious dynastic will; 
 and that the real match was made between 
 Pandora and Lady Place. 
 
 Anyhow, it was all very suitable, and she 
 must be content to leave it at that. “The car 
 from the Lamb and Flag was waiting to take 
 them to the station. itus was going back to 
 London with Pandora to see her people, as 
 Pandora had refused to face their approval 
 alone. The Williamses lived pleasantly on 
 
 227 
 § 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Campden Hill, and were typical of the best 
 class of Londoners, being almost indistinguish- 
 able from people living pleasantly in the coun- 
 try. What, indeed, could be more countrified 
 than to be in town during September? For a 
 moment Laura feared that she would be obliged 
 to travel to London. ‘The lovers had insisted 
 upon her company as far as the station. 
 
 “You must come,” said Titus. ‘There will 
 be all sorts of things I shall remember to ask 
 you to do for me. I can’t remember them 
 now, but I shall the moment the car starts. I 
 always do.” 
 
 Laura knew this to be very truth. Never- 
 theless she stood out against going until Pandora 
 manoeuvred her into a corner and said in a 
 desperate whisper: “O Miss Willowes, for 
 God’s sake, please come. You’ve no idea how 
 awful it is being left alone with some one you 
 love.” 
 
 Laura replied: “Very well. Ill come as a 
 thank-offering.” 
 
 Pandora’s sense of humour could just con- 
 trive a rather castaway smile. 
 
 They got into the car. “There was no time 
 to spare, and the driver took them along the 
 winding lanes at top speed, sounding his horn 
 
 228 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 incessantly. It was a closed car, and they sat 
 in it in perfect silence all the way to the station. 
 Before the car had drawn up in the station yard 
 Titus leaped out and began to pay the driver. 
 Then he looked wildly about for the train. 
 There was no train in sight. It had not come 
 In yet. 
 
 When Laura had seen them off and gone 
 back to the station yard she found that in his 
 excitement Titus had dismissed the driver with- 
 out considering how his aunt was to get back to 
 Great Mop. However, it didn’t matter—the 
 bus started for Barleighs at half-past eight, and 
 from Barleighs she could walk on for the rest 
 of the way. ‘This gave her an hour and a half 
 to spend in Wickendon. A sensible way of 
 passing the time would be to eat something 
 before her return journey; but she was not 
 hungry, and the fly-blown cafés in the High 
 Street were not tempting. She bought some 
 fruit, and turned up an alley between garden 
 walls in search of a field where she could sit 
 and eat it in peace. ‘The alley soon changed to 
 an untidy lane and then to a cinder-track 
 running steeply uphill between high hedges. 
 A municipal kindliness had supplied at intervals 
 iron benches, clamped and riveted into the 
 
 229 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 cinders. But no one reposed on them, and the 
 place was unpeopled save by swarms of midges. 
 Laura was hot and breathless by the time she 
 reached the top of the hill and came out upon 
 a bare grassy common. Here was an obvious 
 place to sit down and gasp, and as there were 
 no iron benches to deter her, she did so. But 
 she immediately forgot her exhaustion, so ar- 
 resting was the sight that lay before her. 
 
 The cinder-track led to a small enclosure, 
 full of cypresses, yews, clipped junipers and 
 weeping-willows. Rising from this funereal 
 plumage was an assortment of minarets, gilded 
 cupolas and obelisks. She stared at this phen- 
 nomenon, so byronic in conception, so spick and 
 span in execution, and sprouting so surpris- 
 ingly from the mild Chiltern landscape, com- 
 pletely at a loss to account for it. Then she 
 remembered: it was the Maulgrave Folly. She 
 had read of it in the guide-book, and of its 
 author, Sir Ralph Maulgrave, the Satanic 
 Baronet, the libertine, the atheist, who drank 
 out of a skull, who played away his mistress 
 and pistolled the winner, who rode about 
 Buckinghamshire on a zebra, whose conversa- 
 tion had been too much for Thomas Moore. 
 “This bad and eccentric character,” the guide- 
 
 230 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 book said, disinfecting his memory with ra- 
 tional amusement. Grown old, he had amused 
 himself by elaborating a burial-place which was 
 to be an epitome of his eclectic and pessimistic 
 opinions. He must, thought Laura, have spent 
 many hours on this hillside, watching the 
 masons and directing the gardeners where to 
 plant his cypresses. And afterwards he would 
 be wheeled away in his bath-chair, for, pace 
 the guide-book, at a comparatively early age he 
 lost the use of his legs. 
 
 Poor gentleman, how completely he had mis- 
 understood the Devil! ‘The plethoric gilt cu- 
 polas winked in the setting sun. For all their 
 bad taste, they were perfectly respectable—cu- 
 polas and minarets and cypresses, all had a sleek 
 and well-cared-for look. ‘They had an assured 
 income, nothing could disturb their calm. The 
 silly, vain, passionate heart that lay buried 
 there had bequeathed a sum of money for their 
 perpetual upkeep. “The Satanic Baronet who 
 mocked at eternal life and designated this place 
 as a lasting testimony of his disbelief had con- 
 trived to immortalise himself as a laughing- 
 stock. 
 
 It was ungenerous. ‘The dead man had been 
 pilloried long enough; it was high time that 
 
 231 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 Maulgrave’s Folly should be left to fall into 
 decent ruin and decay. And instead of that, 
 even at this moment it was being trimmed up 
 afresh. She felt a thrill of anger as she saw 
 a gardener come out of the enclosure, carrying 
 a flag basket and a pair of shears. He came 
 towards her, and something about the rather 
 slouching and prowling gait struck her as being 
 familiar. She looked more closely, and recog- 
 nised Satan. 
 
 “How can you!” she said, when he was 
 within speaking distance. He, of all people, 
 should be more compassionate to the shade of 
 Sir Ralph. 
 
 He feigned not to hear her. 
 
 “Would you care to go over the Folly, 
 ma’am!” he inquired. “It’s quite a curiosity. 
 Visitors come out from London to see it.” 
 
 Laura was not going to be fubbed off like 
 this. He might pretend not to recognise her, 
 but she would jog his memory. 
 
 “So you are a grave-keeper as well as a 
 game-keeper! ” 
 
 “The Council employ me to cut the bushes,” 
 he answered. 
 
 “O Satan!” she exclaimed, hurt by his 
 equivocations. “Do you always hide?” 
 
 232 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 With the gesture of a man who can never 
 hold out against women, he yielded and sat 
 down beside her on the grass. 
 
 Laura felt a momentary embarrassment. 
 She had long wished for a reasonable conversa- 
 tion with her Master, but now that her wish 
 seemed about to be granted, she felt rather at a 
 loss for an opening. At last she observed: 
 
 “Titus has gone.” 
 
 “Indeed? Isn’t that rather sudden? It 
 was only this afternoon that I met him.” 
 
 “Yes, I saw you meeting him. At least, I 
 saw him meeting you.” 
 
 “Just so. It is remarkable,” he added, as 
 though he were politely parrying her thought, 
 “how invisible one is on these bare green hill- 
 sides.” 
 
 “Or in these thick brown woods,” said 
 Laura rather sternly. 
 
 This sort of satanic playfulness was no 
 novelty; Vinegar often behaved in the same 
 fashion, leaping about just out of reach when 
 she wanted to catch him and shut him up 
 indoors. 
 
 “Or in these thick brown woods,” he con- 
 curred. “Folly Wood is especially dense.” _ 
 
 eT ap 7? 
 
 235 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “Ts, Once a wood, always a wood.” 
 
 Once a wood, always a wood. ‘The words 
 rang true, and she sat silent, considering them. 
 Pious Asa might hew down the groves, but as 
 far as the Devil was concerned he hewed in 
 vain. Once a wood, always a wood: trees 
 where he sat would crowd into a shade. And 
 people going by in broad sunlight would be 
 aware of slow voices overhead, and a sudden 
 chill would fall upon their flesh. ‘Then, if 
 like her they had a natural leaning towards the 
 Devil, they would linger, listening about them 
 with half-closed eyes and averted senses; but 
 if they were respectable people like Henry 
 and Caroline they would talk rather louder and 
 hurry on. ‘There remaineth a rest for the 
 people of God (somehow the thought of the 
 Devil always propelled her mind to the Holy 
 Scriptures), and for the other people, the people 
 of Satan, there remained a rest also. Held 
 fast in that strong memory no wild thing could 
 be shaken, no secret covert destroyed, no haunt 
 of shadow and silence laid open. The goods 
 yard at Paddington, for instance—a savage 
 place! as holy and enchanted as ever it had 
 been. Not one of the monuments and tinker- 
 ings of man could impose on the satanic mind. 
 
 234 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 The Vatican and the Crystal Palace, and all 
 
 the neat human nest-boxes in rows, Balham 
 and Fulham and the Cromwell Road—he saw 
 through them, they went flop like card-houses, 
 the bricks were earth again, and the steel girders 
 burrowed shrieking into the veins of earth, and 
 the dead timber was restored to the ghostly 
 groves. Wolves howled through the streets of 
 Paris, the foxes played in the throne-room of 
 Schénbrunn, and in the basement at Apsley 
 ‘Terrace, the mammoth slowly revolved, tram- 
 pling out its lair. 
 
 “Then I needn’t really have come here to 
 meet you!” she exclaimed. 
 
 “Did you?” 
 
 “T didn’t know I did. I thought I came 
 here to be in the country, and to escape being 
 an aunt.” 
 
 “Titus came here to write a book on Fuseli, 
 and to enjoy himself.” 
 
 “Titus! I can’t believe you wanted him.” 
 
 “But you believe I wanted you.” 
 
 Rather taken aback she yet answered the 
 Devil honestly. 
 
 “Yes! I do believe you wanted me. ‘Though 
 really I don’t know why you should.” 
 
 A slightly malevolent smile crossed the 
 
 235 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 Devil’s face. For some reason or other her 
 modesty seemed to have nettled him. 
 
 “Some people would say that you had flung 
 yourself at my head.” 
 
 “Other people,” she retorted, “‘would say 
 that you had been going about seeking to de- 
 vour me.” 
 
 “Exactly. JI even roared that night. But 
 you were asleep while I roared. Only the 
 hills heard me triumphing over my spoil.” 
 
 Laura said: “I wish I could really believe 
 that.” 
 
 “I wish you could, too,” he answered af- 
 fably; “you would feel so comfortable and im- 
 portant. But you won’t, although it is much 
 more probable than you might suppose.” 
 
 Laura stretched herself out on the turf and 
 pillowed her head on her arm. 
 
 “Nothing could feel more comfortable than 
 I do, now that Titus is gone,” she said. “And 
 as for importance, I never wish to feel import- 
 ant again. JI had enough of that when I was 
 an aunt.” 
 
 “Well, youre a witch now.” 
 
 “SV esi ost s ebareallveamcarenct 1uree 
 
 “Trrevocably.” 
 
 His voice was so perfectly grave that she 
 
 236 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 began to suspect him of concealing some amuse- 
 ment. When but a moment before he had 
 jested she had thought a deeper meaning lay 
 beneath his words, she almost believed that his 
 voice had roared over her in the thunder. If 
 he had spoken without feigning then, she had 
 not heard him; for he had stopped her ears 
 with a sleep. 
 
 _ “Why do you sigh?” he asked. 
 
 “Did I sigh? I’m puzzled, that’s all. You 
 see, although I’m a witch, and although you 
 sitting here beside me tell me so, I can’t really 
 appreciate it, take it in. It all seems perfectly 
 natural.” 
 
 “That is because you are in my power. No 
 servant of mine can feel remorse, or doubt, or 
 surprise. You may be quite easy, Laura: you 
 will never escape me, for you can never wish 
 (6. 
 
 “Yes, I can quite well believe that; I’m sure 
 I shall never wish to escape you. But you are 
 a mysterious Master.” 
 
 “You seem to me rather an exacting servant. 
 I have shaped myself like a jobbing gardener, I 
 am sitting on the grass beside you (Ill have one 
 of your apples if I may. They are a fruit I 
 am particularly fond of), I am doing every- 
 
 237 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 thing in my power to be agreeable and re- 
 assuring . . . What more do you want?” 
 
 “That is exactly what I complain of. You 
 are too lifelike to be natural; why, it might be 
 Goethe’s Conversations with Eckermann. No! 
 if I am really a witch, treat me as such. 
 Satisfy my curiosity. Tell me about your- 
 AB ig 
 
 “Tell me first what you think,” he answered. 
 
 “T think’—she began cautiously (while he 
 hid his cards it would not do to show all hers) 
 —‘T think you are a kind of black knight, 
 wandering about and succouring decayed gen- 
 tlewomen.” 
 
 *“There are warlocks too, remember.” 
 
 “T can’t take warlocks so seriously, not as a 
 class. It is we witches who count. We have 
 more need of you. Women have such vivid 
 imaginations, and lead such dull lives. ‘Their 
 pleasure in life is so soon over; they are so de- 
 pendent upon others, and their dependence so 
 soon becomes a nuisance. Do you _ under- 
 stand?” 
 
 He was silent. She continued, slowly, knit- 
 ting her brows in the effort to make clear to 
 herself and him the thought that was in her 
 mind: 
 
 238 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “It’s like this. When I think of witches, I 
 seem to see all over England, all over Europe, 
 women living and growing old, as common as 
 blackberries, and as unregarded. I see them, 
 wives and sisters of respectable men, chapel 
 members, and blacksmiths, and small farmers, 
 and Puritans. In places like Bedfordshire, the 
 sort of country one sees from the train. You 
 know. Well, there they were, there they are, 
 child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed 
 dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion 
 each other’s silly conversation, and listening to 
 men talking together in the way that men talk 
 and women listen. Quite different to the way 
 women talk, and men listen, if they listen at 
 all. And all the time being thrust further 
 down into dullness when the one thing all 
 women hate is to be thought dull. And on 
 Sunday they put on plain stuff gowns and 
 starched white coverings on their heads and 
 necks—the Puritan ones did—and walked across 
 the fields to chapel, and listened to the sermon. 
 Sin and Grace, and God and the (she 
 stopped herself just in time), “‘and St. Paul. 
 
 All men’s things, like politics, or mathematics. 
 Nothing for them except subjection and plait- 
 ing their hair. And on the way back they lis- 
 
 lees 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 tened to more talk. ‘Talk about the sermon, 
 or war, or cock-fighting; and when they got 
 back, there were the potatoes to be cooked for 
 dinner. It sounds very petty to complain about, 
 but I tell you, that sort of thing settles down on 
 one like a fine dust, and by and by the dust 
 is age, settling down. Settling down! You 
 never die, do you? No doubt that’s far worse, 
 but there is a dreadful kind of dreary immor- 
 tality about being settled down on by one day 
 after another. And they think how they were 
 young once, and they see new young women, 
 just like what they were, and yet as surprising 
 as if it had never happened before, like trees 
 in spring. But they are like trees towards the 
 end of summer, heavy and dusty, and nobody 
 finds their leaves surprising, or notices them 
 till they fall off. If they could be passive and 
 unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must 
 be active, and still not noticed. Doing, doing, 
 doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a 
 housewife, and rouses them up—when they 
 might sit in their doorways and think—to be 
 doing still!” 
 
 She paused, out of breath. She had never 
 made such a long speech in the whole of her 
 life, nor spoken with such passion. She scarcely 
 
 240 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 knew what she had said, and felt giddy and un- 
 
 accustomed, as though she had been thrown into 
 the air and had suddenly begun to fly. 
 
 The Devil was silent, and looked thought- 
 fully at the ground. He seemed to be rather 
 touched by all this. She continued, for she 
 feared that if she did not go on talking she 
 would grow ashamed at having said so much. 
 
 “Is it true that you can poke the fire with a 
 stick of dynamite in perfect safety? I used to 
 take my nieces to scientific lectures, and I 
 believe I heard it then. Anyhow, even, if it 
 isn’t true.of dynamite, it’s true of women. 
 But they know they are dynamite, and long for 
 the concussion that may justify them. Some 
 may get religion, then they’re all right, I ex- 
 pect. But for the others, for so many, what 
 can there be but witchcraft? ‘That strikes 
 them real. Even if other people still find them 
 quite safe and usual, and go on poking with 
 them, they know in their hearts how danger- 
 ous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they 
 are. Even if they never do anything with 
 their witchcraft, they know it’s there—ready! 
 Respectable countrywomen keep their grave- 
 clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, 
 hidden away, and when they want a little com- 
 
 241 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 fort they go and look at them, and think that 
 
 once more, at any rate, they will be worth 
 dressing with care. But the witch keeps her 
 cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with 
 signs and planets; that’s better worth looking 
 at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you 
 pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, 
 following it through all its windings, crafty 
 and patient and secret like a gentleman out kill- 
 ing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would 
 give a look at her body even! And they are 
 all so accustomed, so sure of her! ‘They say: 
 ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for 
 her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water 
 bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? 
 Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly 
 worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my 
 bird! I will give you the dangerous black 
 night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous 
 berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and 
 thorns, perched high up in danger where no one 
 
 > That’s why we become 
 
 can climb to it. 
 witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s 
 a safe business, to satisfy our passion for ad- 
 venture. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, 
 perhaps it zs wickedness, for most women love 
 that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to 
 
 242 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 plague cattle and make horrid children spout up 
 pins and—what is it?—‘blight the genial bed, 
 Of course, given the power, one may go in 
 for that sort of thing, either in self-defence, 
 or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor 
 twopenny house-wifely kind of witchcraft, 
 black magic is, and white magic is no better. 
 One doesn’t become a witch to run round being 
 harmful, or to run round being helpful either, 
 a district Visitor on a broomstick. It’s to es- 
 cape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not 
 an existence doled out to you by others, char- 
 itable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces 
 of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse 
 dietary is scientifically calculated to support 
 life. As for the witches who can only express 
 themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have 
 been warped into that shape by the dismal lives 
 they’ve led. ‘Think of Miss Carloe! She’s a 
 typical witch, people would say. Really she’s 
 the typical genteel spinster who’s spent herself 
 being useful to people who didn’t want her. 
 If, you’d got her younger she’d never be like 
 that.” 
 
 “You seem to know a good deal about 
 witches,” remarked Satan. “But you were go- 
 ing to say what you thought about me.” 
 
 243 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “Go on,” he said encouragingly. “You 
 compared me to a knight-errant. That's very 
 pretty. I believe you have also compared me 
 to a hunter, a poaching sort of hunter, prowling 
 through the woods after dark. Not so flatter- 
 ing to my vanity as the knight-errant, but more 
 accurate, I daresay.” 
 
 “O Satan! Why do you encourage me to 
 talk when you know all my thoughts?” 
 
 “TI encourage you to talk, not that I may 
 know all your thoughts, but that you may. 
 Go on, Laura. Don’t be foolish, What do 
 you think about me?” 
 
 “T don’t know,” she said honestly. “TI don’t 
 think I do think. I only rhapsodise and make 
 comparisons. You’re beyond me, my thought 
 flies off you like the centrifugal hypothesis. 
 And after this I shall be more at a loss than 
 ever, for I like you so much, I find you so kind 
 and sympathetic. But it is obvious that you 
 can’t be merely a benevolent institution. No, I. 
 must be your witch in blindness.” 
 
 “You don’t take warlocks so seriously, I 
 know. But you might find their point of view 
 illuminating. As it’s a spiritual difficulty, why 
 not consult Mr. Jones?” 
 
 244 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 “Poor Mr. Jones!” Laura began to laugh. 
 “He can’t call his soul his own.” 
 
 “Hush! Have you forgotten that he has 
 sold it to me?” 
 
 “Then why did you mortgage it to Mr. 
 Gurdon? Mr. Jones isn’t even allowed to 
 attend the Sabbath.” 
 
 “You are a little dense at times. Hasn’t it 
 occurred to you that other people might share 
 your sophisticated dislike for the Sabbath?” 
 
 “You don’t attend the Sabbath either, if it 
 comes to that.” 
 
 “How do you know? Don’t try to put me 
 in your pocket, Laura. You are not my only 
 conquest, and I am not a human master to 
 have favourites among my servants. All are 
 souls that come to my net. I apologise for the 
 pun, but it is apt.” 
 
 She had been rebuked, but she did not feel 
 particularly abashed. It was true, then, what 
 she had read of the happy relationship between 
 the Devil and his servants. If Euphan Macal- 
 zean had rated him—why, so, at a pinch, might 
 she. Other things that she had read might 
 also be true, she thought, things that she had 
 till now been inclined to reject. So easy- 
 going a Master who had no favourites among 
 
 245 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 his servants might in reality attend the Sabbath, 
 might unbend enough to eat black-puddings at 
 a picnic without losing his dignity. 
 
 “That offensive. young man at the Sabbath,” 
 she remarked, “I know he wasn’t you. Who 
 was he?” 
 
 “He’s one of these brilliant young authors,” 
 replied the Devil. “I believe Titus knows 
 him. He sold me his soul on the condition that 
 once a week he should be without doubt the 
 most important person at a party.” 
 
 “Why didn’t he sell his soul in order to be- 
 come a great writer? Then he could have had 
 the party into the bargain.” 
 
 “He preferred to take a short-cut, you see.” 
 
 She didn’t see. But she was too proud to 
 inquire further, especially as Satan was now 
 smiling at her as if she were a pet lamb. 
 
 “What did Mr. Jones an 
 
 “That’s enough! ‘You can ask him that 
 yourself, when you take your lessons in demon- 
 
 ology.” 
 
 “Do you suppose for one moment that Mr. 
 Gurdon would let me sit closeted with Mr. 
 Jones taking lessons in plain needlework even? 
 He would put his face in at the window and 
 say: ‘How much longer are them Mothers to 
 
 246 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 be kept waiting?’ or: ‘I should like to know 
 what your reverence is doing about that there 
 dung?’ or: ‘I suppose you know that the 
 cowman’s girl may go off at any minute.’ 
 And then he’d take him down to the shrubbery 
 and scold him. My heart bleeds for the poor 
 old gentleman!” | 
 
 “Mr. Jones”—Satan spoke demurely—‘will 
 have his reward in another life.” 
 
 Laura was silent. She gazed at the Maul- 
 grave Folly with what she could feel to be a 
 pensive expression. But her mind was a blank. 
 
 “A delicate point, you say? Perhaps it is 
 bad taste on my part to jest about it.” 
 
 A midge settled on Laura’s wrist. She 
 smacked at it. 
 
 “Dead!” said Satan. 
 
 The word dropped into her mind like a peb- 
 ble thrown into a pond. She had heard it so 
 often, and now she heard it once more. ‘The 
 same waves of thought circled outwards, waves 
 of startled thought spreading out on all sides, 
 rocking the shadows of familiar things, blur- 
 ring the steadfast pictures of trees and clouds, 
 circling outward one after the other, each 
 wave more listless, more imperceptible than the 
 last, until the pool was still again. 
 
 247 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 There might be some questions that even the 
 Devil could not answer. She turned her eyes 
 to him with their question. 
 
 Satan had risen to his feet. He picked up 
 the flag basket and the shears, and made ready 
 to go. 
 
 “Ts it time?” asked Laura. 
 
 He nodded, and smiled. 
 
 She got up in her turn, and began to shake 
 the dust off her skirt. “Then she prodded a 
 hole for the bag which had held the apples, and 
 buried it tidily, smoothing the earth over the 
 hole. ‘This took a little time to do, and when 
 she looked round for Satan, to say good-bye, he 
 was out of sight. 
 
 Seeing that he was gone she sat down again, 
 for she wanted to think him over. A pleasant 
 conversation, though she had done most of the 
 talking. ‘The tract of flattened grass at her 
 side showed where he had rested, and there was 
 the rampion flower he had held in his hand. 
 Grass that has been lain upon has always a 
 rather popular bank-holidayish look, and even 
 the Devil’s lair was not exempt from this. It 
 was as though the grass were in league with 
 him, faithfully playing-up to his pose of being 
 a quite everyday phenomenon. Not a blade of 
 
 248 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 grass was singed, not a clover-leaf blasted, and 
 the rampion flower was withering quite natu- 
 rally; yet he who had sat there was Satan, the 
 author of all evil, whose thoughts were a dark- 
 ness, whose roots went down into the pit. 
 There was no action too mean for him, no in- 
 strument too petty; he would go into a milk- 
 jug to work mischief. And presently he would 
 emerge, imperturbable, inscrutable, enormous 
 with the dignity of natural behaviour and un- 
 trammelled self-fulfilment. 
 
 ‘To be this—a character truly integral, a per- 
 petual flowering of power and, cunning from. 
 an undivided will—was enough to constitute 
 the charm and majesty of the Devil. No cloak 
 of terrors was necessary to enlarge that stature, 
 and to suppose him capable of speculation or 
 metaphysic would be like offering to crown him 
 with a few casual straws. Very probably he 
 was quite stupid. When she had asked him 
 about death he had got up and gone away, 
 which looked as if he did not know much more 
 about it than she did herself: indeed, being im- 
 mortal, it was unlikely that he would know as 
 much. Instead, his mind brooded immovably 
 over the landscape and over the natures of men, 
 an unforgetting and unchoosing mind. That, 
 
 249 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 of course—and she jumped up in her excite- 
 ment and began to wave her arms—was why he 
 was the Devil, the enemy of souls. His mem- 
 ory was too long, too retentive; there was no 
 appeasing its witness, no hoodwinking it with 
 the present; and that was why at one stage of 
 civilization people said he was the embodiment 
 of all evil, and then a little later on that he 
 didn’t exist. 
 
 For a moment Laura thought that she had 
 him: and on the next, as though he had tricked 
 himself out of her grasp, her thoughts were 
 scattered by the sudden consciousness of a sort 
 of jerk in the atmosphere. The sun had gone 
 down, sliding abruptly behind the hills. In 
 that case the bus would have gone too, she 
 might as well hope to catch the one as the other. 
 First Satan, then the sun and the bus—adieu, 
 mes gens! ‘Nith affectionate unconcern she 
 seemed to be waving them farewell, pleased to 
 be left to herself, left to enter into this new 
 independence acknowledged by their departure. 
 
 The night was at her disposal. She might 
 walk back to Great Mop and arrive very late:. 
 or she might sleep out and not trouble to arrive 
 until to-morrow. Whichever she did Mrs. 
 Leak would not mind. ‘That was one of the 
 
 250 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 
 advantages of dealing with witches; they do 
 not mind if you are a little odd in your ways, 
 frown if you are late for meals, fret if you 
 are out all night, pry and commiserate when at 
 length you return. Lovely to be with people 
 who prefer their thoughts to yours, lovely to 
 live at your own sweet will, lovely to sleep out 
 all night! She had quite decided, now, to do 
 so. It was an adventure, she had never done 
 such a thing before, and yet it seemed most 
 natural. She would not sleep here: Wicken- 
 don was too close. But presently, later on, 
 when she felt inclined to, she would, wander 
 off in search of a suitable dry ditch or an ac- 
 commodating loosened haystack; or wading 
 through last year’s leaves and this year’s fern 
 she would penetrate into a wood and burrow 
 herself a bed. ( Satan going his rounds might 
 come upon her and smile to see her lying so 
 peaceful and secure in his dangerous keeping. 
 But he would not disturb her. Why should 
 het ‘The pursuit was over, as far as she was 
 concerned. She could sleep where she pleased, 
 a hind couched in the Devil’s coverts, a witch 
 made free of her Master’s immunity; while he, 
 wakeful and stealthy, was already out af ir 
 new game. So he would not disturb her. A 
 251 
 
LOLLY WILLOWES 
 closer darkness upon her slumber, a deeper voice 
 in the murmuring leaves overhead—that would 
 be all she would know of his undesiring and 
 unjudging gaze, his satisfied but profoundly in- 
 different ownership. 
 
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