Dorothy rode into the hamlet of Fennelwick, a mile out of Knype Hill. She had delivered Mrs Lewin’s corn-plaster, and was dropping in to give old Mrs Pither that cutting from the Daily Mail about angelica tea for rheumatism. The sun, burning in the cloudless sky, scorched her back through her gingham frock, and the dusty road quivered in the heat, and the hot, flat meadows, over which even at this time of year numberless larks chirruped tiresomely, were so green that it hurt your eyes to look at them. It was the kind of day that is called ‘glorious’ by people who don’t have to work.
Dorothy leaned her bicycle against the gate of the Pithers’ cottage, and took her handkerchief out of her bag and wiped her hands, which were sweating from the handle-bars. In the harsh sunlight her face looked pinched and colourless. She looked her age, and something over, at that hour of the morning. Throughout her day—and in general it was a seventeen-hour day—she had regular, alternating periods of tiredness and energy; the middle of the morning, when she was doing the first instalment of the day’s ‘visiting’, was one of the tired periods.
‘Visiting’, because of the distances she had to bicycle from house to house, took up nearly half of Dorothy’s day. Every day of her life, except on Sundays, she made from half a dozen to a dozen visits at parishioners’ cottages. She penetrated into cramped interiors and sat on lumpy, dust-diffusing chairs gossiping with overworked, blowsy housewives; she spent hurried half-hours giving a hand with the mending and the ironing, and read chapters from the Gospels, and readjusted bandages on ‘bad legs’, and condoled with sufferers from morning-sickness; she played ride-a-cock-horse with sour-smelling children who grimed the bosom of her dress with their sticky little fingers; she gave advice about ailing aspidistras, and suggested names for babies, and drank ‘nice cups of tea’ innumerable—for the working women always wanted her to have a ‘nice cup of tea’, out of the teapot endlessly stewing.
Much of it was profoundly discouraging work. Few, very few, of the women seemed to have even a conception of the Christian life that she was trying to help them to lead. Some of them were shy and suspicious, stood on the defensive, and made excuses when urged to come to Holy Communion; some shammed piety for the sake of the tiny sums they could wheedle out of the church alms box; those who welcomed her coming were for the most part the talkative ones, who wanted an audience for complaints about the ‘goings on’ of their husbands, or for endless mortuary tales (’And he had to have glass chubes let into his veins,’ etc., etc.) about the revolting diseases their relatives had died of. Quite half the women on her list, Dorothy knew, were at heart atheistical in a vague unreasoning way. She came up against it all day long—that vague, blank disbelief so common in illiterate people, against which all argument is powerless. Do what she would, she could never raise the number of regular communicants to more than a dozen or thereabouts. Women would promise to communicate, keep their promise for a month or two, and then fall away. With the younger women it was especially hopeless. They would not even join the local branches of the church leagues that were run for their benefit—Dorothy was honorary secretary of three such leagues, besides being captain of the Girl Guides. The Band of Hope and the Companionship of Marriage languished almost memberless, and the Mothers’ Union only kept going because gossip and unlimited strong tea made the weekly sewing-parties acceptable. Yes, it was discouraging work; so discouraging that at times it would have seemed altogether futile if she had not known the sense of futility for what it is—the subtlest weapon of the Devil.
Dorothy knocked at the Pithers’ badly fitting door, from beneath which a melancholy smell of boiled cabbage and dish-water was oozing. From long experience she knew and could taste in advance the individual smell of every cottage on her rounds. Some of their smells were peculiar in the extreme. For instance, there was the salty, feral smell that haunted the cottage of old Mr Tombs, an aged retired bookseller who lay in bed all day in a darkened room, with his long, dusty nose and pebble spectacles protruding from what appeared to be a fur rug of vast size and richness.
But if you put your hand on the fur rug it disintegrated, burst and fled in all directions. It was composed entirely of cats—twenty- four cats, to be exact. Mr Tombs ‘found they kept him warm’, he used to explain. In nearly all the cottages there was a basic smell of old overcoats and dish-water upon which the other, individual smells were superimposed; the cesspool smell, the cabbage smell, the smell of children, the strong, bacon-like reek of corduroys impregnated with the sweat of a decade.
Mrs Pither opened the door, which invariably stuck to the jamb, and then, when you wrenched it open, shook the whole cottage. She was a large, stooping, grey woman with wispy grey hair, a sacking apron, and shuffling carpet slippers.
‘Why, if it isn’t Miss Dorothy!’ she exclaimed in a dreary, lifeless but not unaffectionate voice.
She took Dorothy between her large, gnarled hands, whose knuckles were as shiny as skinned onions from age and ceaseless washing up, and gave her a wet kiss. Then she drew her into the unclean interior of the cottage.
‘Pither’s away at work, Miss,’ she announced as they got inside. ‘Up to Dr Gaythorne’s he is, a-digging over the doctor’s flower- beds for him.’
Mr Pither was a jobbing gardener. He and his wife, both of them over seventy, were one of the few genuinely pious couples on Dorothy’s visiting list. Mrs Pither led a dreary, wormlike life of shuffling to and fro, with a perpetual crick in her neck because the door lintels were too low for her, between the well, the sink, the fireplace, and the tiny plot of kitchen garden. The kitchen was decently tidy, but oppressively hot, evil-smelling and saturated with ancient dust. At the end opposite the fireplace Mrs Pither had made a kind of prie-dieu out of a greasy rag mat laid in front of a tiny, defunct harmonium, on top of which were an oleographed crucifixion, ‘Watch and Pray’ done in beadwork, and a photograph of Mr and Mrs Pither on their wedding day in 1882.
‘Poor Pither!’ went on Mrs Pither in her depressing voice, ‘him a- digging at his age, with his rheumatism that bad! Ain’t it cruel hard, Miss? And he’s had a kind of a pain between his legs, Miss, as he can’t seem to account for—terrible bad he’s been with it, these last few mornings. Ain’t it bitter hard, Miss, the lives us poor working folks has to lead?’
‘It’s a shame,’ said Dorothy. ‘But I hope you’ve been keeping a little better yourself, Mrs Pither?’
‘Ah, Miss, there’s nothing don’t make me better. I ain’t a case for curing, not in this world, I ain’t. I shan’t never get no better, not in this wicked world down here.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t say that, Mrs Pither! I hope we shall have you with us for a long time yet.’
‘Ah, Miss, you don’t know how poorly I’ve been this last week! I’ve had the rheumatism a-coming and a-going all down the backs of my poor old legs, till there’s some mornings when I don’t feel as I can’t walk so far as to pull a handful of onions in the garden. Ah, Miss, it’s a weary world we lives in, ain’t it, Miss? A weary, sinful world.’
‘But of course we must never forget, Mrs Pither, that there’s a better world coming. This life is only a time of trial—just to strengthen us and teach us to be patient, so that we’ll be ready for Heaven when the time comes.’
At this a sudden and remarkable change came over Mrs Pither. It was produced by the word ‘Heaven’. Mrs Pither had only two subjects of conversation; one of them was the joys of Heaven, and the other the miseries of her present state. Dorothy’s remark seemed to act upon her like a charm. Her dull grey eye was not capable of brightening, but her voice quickened with an almost joyful enthusiasm.
‘Ah, Miss, there you said it! That’s a true word, Miss! That’s what Pither and me keeps a-saying to ourselves. And that’s just the one thing as keeps us a-going—just the thought of Heaven and the long, long rest we’ll have there. Whatever we’ve suffered, we gets it all back in Heaven, don’t we, Miss? Every little bit of suffering, you gets it back a hundredfold and a thousandfold. That is true, ain’t it, Miss? There’s rest for us all in Heaven—rest and peace and no more rheumatism nor digging nor cooking nor laundering nor nothing. You do believe that, don’t you, Miss Dorothy?’
‘Of course,’ said Dorothy.
‘Ah, Miss, if you knew how it comforts us—just the thoughts of Heaven! Pither he says to me, when he comes home tired of a night and our rheumatism’s bad, “Never you mind, my dear,” he says, “we ain’t far off Heaven now,” he says. “Heaven was made for the likes of us,” he says; “just for poor working folks like us, that have been sober and godly and kept our Communions regular.” That’s the best way, ain’t it, Miss Dorothy—poor in this life and rich in the next? Not like some of them rich folks as all their motorcars and their beautiful houses won’t save from the worm that dieth not and the fire that’s not quenched. Such a beautiful text, that is. Do you think you could say a little prayer with me, Miss Dorothy? I been looking forward all the morning to a little prayer.
Mrs Pither was always ready for a ‘little prayer’ at any hour of the night or day. It was her equivalent to a ‘nice cup of tea’. They knelt down on the rag mat and said the Lord’s Prayer and the Collect for the week; and then Dorothy, at Mrs Pither’s request, read the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Mrs Pither coming in from time to time with ‘Amen! That’s a true word, ain’t it, Miss Dorothy? “And he was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom.” Beautiful! Oh, I do call that just too beautiful! Amen, Miss Dorothy—Amen!’
Dorothy gave Mrs Pither the cutting from the Daily Mail about angelica tea for rheumatism, and then, finding that Mrs Pither had been too ‘poorly’ to draw the day’s supply of water, she drew three bucketfuls for her from the well. It was a very deep well, with such a low parapet that Mrs Pither’s final doom would almost certainly be to fall into it and get drowned, and it had not even a winch—you had to haul the bucket up hand over hand. And then they sat down for a few minutes, and Mrs Pither talked some more about Heaven. It was extraordinary how constantly Heaven reigned in her thoughts; and more extraordinary yet was the actuality, the vividness with which she could see it. The golden streets and the gates of orient pearl were as real to her as though they had been actually before her eyes. And her vision extended to the most concrete, the most earthly details. The softness of the beds up there! The deliciousness of the food! The lovely silk clothes that you would put on clean every morning! The surcease from everlasting to everlasting from work of any description! In almost every moment of her life the vision of Heaven supported and consoled her, and her abject complaints about the lives of ‘poor working folks’ were curiously tempered by a satisfaction in the thought that, after all, it is ‘poor working folks’ who are the principal inhabitants of Heaven. It was a sort of bargain that she had struck, setting her lifetime of dreary labour against an eternity of bliss. Her faith was almost too great, if that is possible. For it was a curious fact, but the certitude with which Mrs Pither looked forward to Heaven—as to some kind of glorified home for incurables—affected Dorothy with strange uneasiness.
Dorothy prepared to depart, while Mrs Pither thanked her, rather too effusively, for her visit, winding up, as usual, with fresh complaints about her rheumatism.
‘I’ll be sure and take the angelica tea,’ she concluded, ’and thank you kindly for telling me of it, Miss. Not as I don’t expect as it’ll do me much good. Ah, Miss, if you knew how cruel bad my rheumatism’s been this last week! All down the backs of my legs, it is, like a regular shooting red-hot poker, and I don’t seem to be able to get at them to rub them properly. Would it be asking too much of you, Miss, to give me a bit of a rub-down before you go? I got a bottle of Elliman’s under the sink.’
Unseen by Mrs Pither, Dorothy gave herself a severe pinch. She had been expecting this, and—she had done it so many times before—she really did not enjoy rubbing Mrs Pither down. She exhorted herself angrily. Come on, Dorothy! No sniffishness, please! John xiii, 14. ‘Of course I will, Mrs Pither!’ she said instantly.
They went up the narrow, rickety staircase, in which you had to bend almost double at one place to avoid the overhanging ceiling. The bedroom was lighted by a tiny square of window that was jammed in its socket by the creeper outside, and had not been opened in twenty years. There was an enormous double bed that almost filled the room, with sheets perennially damp and a flock mattress as full of hills and valleys as a contour map of Switzerland. With many groans the old woman crept on to the bed and laid herself face down. The room reeked of urine and paregoric. Dorothy took the bottle of Elliman’s embrocation and carefully anointed Mrs Pither’s large, grey-veined, flaccid legs.
Outside, in the swimming heat, she mounted her bicycle and began to ride swiftly homewards. The sun burned in her face, but the air now seemed sweet and fresh. She was happy, happy! She was always extravagantly happy when her morning’s ‘visiting’ was over; and, curiously enough, she was not aware of the reason for this. In Borlase the dairy-farmer’s meadow the red cows were grazing, knee- deep in shining seas of grass. The scent of cows, like a distillation of vanilla and fresh hay, floated into Dorothy’s nostrils. Though she had still a morning’s work in front of her she could not resist the temptation to loiter for a moment, steadying her bicycle with one hand against the gate of Borlase’s meadow, while a cow, with moist shell-pink nose, scratched its chin upon the gatepost and dreamily regarded her.
Dorothy caught sight of a wild rose, flowerless of course, growing beyond the hedge, and climbed over the gate with the intention of discovering whether it were not sweetbriar. She knelt down among the tall weeds beneath the hedge. It was very hot down there, close to the ground. The humming of many unseen insects sounded in her ears, and the hot summery fume from the tangled swathes of vegetation flowed up and enveloped her. Near by, tall stalks of fennel were growing, with trailing fronds of foliage like the tails of sea-green horses. Dorothy pulled a frond of the fennel against her face and breathed in the strong sweet scent. Its richness overwhelmed her, almost dizzied her for a moment. She drank it in, filling her lungs with it. Lovely, lovely scent—scent of summer days, scent of childhood joys, scent of spice-drenched islands in the warm foam of Oriental seas!
Her heart swelled with sudden joy. It was that mystical joy in the beauty of the earth and the very nature of things that she recognized, perhaps mistakenly, as the love of God. As she knelt there in the heat, the sweet odour and the drowsy hum of insects, it seemed to her that she could momentarily hear the mighty anthem of praise that the earth and all created things send up everlastingly to their maker. All vegetation, leaves, flowers, grass, shining, vibrating, crying out in their joy. Larks also chanting, choirs of larks invisible, dripping music from the sky. All the riches of summer, the warmth of the earth, the song of birds, the fume of cows, the droning of countless bees, mingling and ascending like the smoke of ever-burning altars. Therefore with Angels and Archangels! She began to pray, and for a moment she prayed ardently, blissfully, forgetting herself in the joy of her worship. Then, less than a minute later, she discovered that she was kissing the frond of the fennel that was still against her face.
She checked herself instantly, and drew back. What was she doing? Was it God that she was worshipping, or was it only the earth? The joy ebbed out of her heart, to be succeeded by the cold, uncomfortable feeling that she had been betrayed into a half-pagan ecstasy. She admonished herself. None of that, Dorothy! No Nature-worship, please! Her father had warned her against Nature- worship. She had heard him preach more than one sermon against it; it was, he said, mere pantheism, and, what seemed to offend him even more, a disgusting modern fad. Dorothy took a thorn of the wild rose, and pricked her arm three times, to remind herself of the Three Persons of the Trinity, before climbing over the gate and remounting her bicycle.
A black, very dusty shovel hat was approaching round the corner of the hedge. It was Father McGuire, the Roman Catholic priest, also bicycling his rounds. He was a very large, rotund man, so large that he dwarfed the bicycle beneath him and seemed to be balanced on top of it like a golf-ball on a tee. His face was rosy, humorous, and a little sly.
Dorothy looked suddenly unhappy. She turned pink, and her hand moved instinctively to the neighbourhood of the gold cross beneath her dress. Father McGuire was riding towards her with an untroubled, faintly amused air. She made an endeavour to smile, and murmured unhappily, ‘Good morning.’ But he rode on without a sign; his eyes swept easily over her face and then beyond her into vacancy, with an admirable pretence of not having noticed her existence. It was the Cut Direct. Dorothy—by nature, alas! unequal to delivering the Cut Direct—got on to her bicycle and rode away, struggling with the uncharitable thoughts which a meeting with Father McGuire never failed to arouse in her.
Five or six years earlier, when Father McGuire was holding a funeral in St Athelstan’s churchyard (there was no Roman Catholic cemetery at Knype Hill), there had been some dispute with the Rector about the propriety of Father McGuire robing in the church, or not robing in the church, and the two priests had wrangled disgracefully over the open grave. Since then they had not been on speaking terms. It was better so, the Rector said.
As to the other ministers of religion in Knype Hill—Mr Ward the Congregationalist minister, Mr Foley the Wesleyan pastor, and the braying bald-headed elder who conducted the orgies at Ebenezer Chapel—the Rector called them a pack of vulgar Dissenters and had forbidden Dorothy on pain of his displeasure to have anything to do with them.