Anne Severn and the Fieldings

s drawn up before the fire in the d

o him-poems, short stories, things that were ended before Colin tired of t

rees at the top of the field, and then down the hill to the Manor Farm. On mild days she drove him about the country in the dog-ca

and rush of the wind, but his strange malady took no count of rain or snow. He shivered in the clear, sti

ter, and Hayes Mill. They were always going to the places where they had done things together. When Colin talked

een. There must be some way of joining up that time to this, if only she could find a bridge, a link. She didn't know that she was the way, she

know that the war had only finished what Queenie had begu

nd her affection never called for any emotional response. She took him away from his fear; she kept him

r the walk to H

e booby-trap we set

s, for poor Pinkn

remember

, ra

for Jerrold had given him to h

Hadn't he? ...Do you remember how I u

mily, and how you used

when you came down cras

dst

mean the

e last m

." He turned his mournful face to her. "

re. In the end all ways l

all when you'r

never be

ou're strong

uld sleep three hours on end no

ooms at night. He was still afraid to sleep alone;

ead of something he didn't know, something that waited for him, something he couldn't face. Something that hu

en it and him. He was unhappy and

, "You're not

I'm comi

w s

hour;" or, "Half an h

be lo

N

But everything seems all right when you

eed. It has the grey church and churchyard beside it

ill, the river and its bridge, lie close together in the small flat of the valley. Green pastures slope up the hill

arm house you see them, green between the brown trunks of the elms on the road bank. From the back you look out across orchard and pasture to the black, still water and yellow osier beds above

ke a wing with one ball-topped gable above it, a smaller gable in the roof behind. O

f nineteen sixteen Barker had joined up, Wyck Manor had been turned into a ho

th a vague promise to give a look round now and then; but when the spring came she found herself doing Barker's work, keeping the farm accounts, ordering fertilizers, calculating so many hundredweights of superphosphate of lime, or sulphate of ammonia, or muriate of potash to the acre; riding a

fields; her nostrils filled with the cold, rich smell of the wet earth; the rank, sharp smell of swedes, the dry, pungent smell of straw and hay; the thick, oily

oat and breeches, her body showed more slender and more robust than ever. Rain, sun and wind

ithout a scowl. When Anne came riding over the Seven Acre field, lazy Ballinger pulled himself together and ploughed through the two last furrows th

ck. She would see him standing by the gate she had passed through, looking after her wi

stood up against the skyline from the curve of the round-topped hill.

horse's hoofs in the yar

d'll be jolly pleased with what

er can be pleased w

time he had sai

othering me," he went

over it. You remember

er d

She rem

him? Look what it's done to me. He m

everybody the s

But he might get something worse. Something t

't mind anything that c

ut the things that'll

chaps knocked a

e can't face. He'd pretend they couldn't happen. But the war's so big that he can't say it isn't happening; he's g

s malady. She thought: "If he can ta

ld get leave. I don't want it all the time. I'm quite prepared to stick this beastl

e made him; you needn't pretend you haven't. I want most awfully to see you agai

it at last, then. He won't

other person could; that whatever happened and however long a time he kept away from her he would come back at some time, in some way. She couldn't distinguish between Jerrold and her sense of