And fortune favoured her, all things conspiring to keep me content to
walk in that path which I had so readily, so lightly, promised to keep:
for the work to be done was bread and cheese to me, and in a sense to
her, and had to be done, and there was nothing to distract attention.
It was quiet in my chosen cottage, in the low-ceilinged room where I
usually sat: outside, the walls were covered with ivy which made it
like a lonely lodge in a wood; and when I opened my small outward-
opening latticed window there was no sound except the sighing of the
wind in the old yew tree growing beside and against the wall, and at
intervals the chirruping of a pair of sparrows that flew up from time
to time from the road with long straws in their bills. They were
building a nest beneath my window - possibly it was the first nest made
that year in all this country.
All the day long it was quiet; and when, tired of work, I went out and
away from the village across the wide vacant fields, there was nothing
to attract the eye. The deadly frost which had held us for long weeks
in its grip had gone, for it was now drawing to the end of March, but
winter was still in the air and in the earth. Day after day a dull
cloud was over all the sky and the wind blew cold from the north-east.
The aspect of the country, as far as one could see in that level plain,
was wintry and colourless. The hedges in that part are kept cut and
trimmed so closely that they seemed less like hedges than mere faint
greyish fences of brushwood, dividing field from field: they would not
have afforded shelter to a hedge-sparrow. The trees were few and far
apart - grey naked oaks, un-visited even by the tits that find their
food in bark and twig; the wide fields between were bare and devoid of
life of man or beast or bird. Ploughed and grass lands were equally
desolate; for the grass was last year's, long dead and now of that
neutral, faded, and palest of all pale dead colours in nature. It is
not white nor yellow, and there is no name for it. Looking down when I
walked in the fields the young spring grass could be seen thrusting up
its blades among the old and dead, but at a distance of a few yards
these delicate living green threads were invisible.
Coming back out of the bleak wind it always seemed strangely warm in
the village street - it was like coming into a room in which a fire has
been burning all day. So grateful did I find this warmth of the deep
old sheltered road, so vocal too and full of life did it seem after the
pallor and silence of the desolate world without, that I made it my
favourite walk, measuring its length from end to end. Nor was it
strange that at last, unconsciously, in spite of a preoccupied brain
and of the assurance given that I would reside in the village, like a
snail in its shell, without seeing it, an impression began to form and
an influence to be felt.
Some vague speculations passed through my mind as to how old the
village might be. I had heard some person remark that it had formerly
been much more populous, that many of its people had from time to time
drifted away to the towns; their old empty cottages pulled down and no
new ones built. The road was deep and the cottages on either side stood
six to eight or nine feet above it. Where a cottage stood close to the
edge of the road and faced it, the door was reached by a flight of
stone or brick steps; at such cottages the landing above the steps was
like a balcony, where one could stand and look down upon a passing
cart, or the daily long straggling procession of children going to or
returning from the village school. I counted the steps that led up to
my own front door and landing place and found there were ten: I took it
that each step represented a century's wear of the road by hoof and
wheel and human feet, and the conclusion was thus that the village was
a thousand years old - probably it was over two thousand. A few
centuries more or less did not seem to matter much; the subject did not
interest me in the least, my passing thought about it was an idle straw
showing which way the mental wind was blowing.
Albeit half-conscious of what that way was, I continued to assure
Psyche - my sister - that all was going well: that if she would only keep
quiet there would be no trouble, seeing that I knew my own weakness so
well - a habit of dropping the thing I am doing because something more
interesting always crops up. Here fortunately for us (and our bread and
cheese) there was nothing interesting - ab-so-lute-ly.
But in the end, when the work was finished, the image that had been
formed could no longer be thrust away and forgotten. It was there, an
entity as well as an image - an intelligent masterful being who said to
me not in words but very plainly: Try to ignore me and it will be
worse for you: a secret want will continually disquiet you: recognize
my existence and right to dwell in and possess your soul, as you dwell
in mine, and there will be a pleasant union and peace between us.
