The Children's Book

They smiled at each other. Griselda was thin and sinuous. Her face was pale, and so were her lashes, and so was her fine gold hair, so demurely knotted. But she wasn’t pallid, like the poking-roots Apostles, she wasn’t pale because she was in the dark. She had a fine waist. She was much more beautiful, Julian thought, than the rosy, creamy, pretty Brooke. He suddenly remembered that he had swum naked with her, at the New Forest camp, years ago, and had paid no attention, because he was looking at Tom.

“There is an old gentleman who works in the Fitzwilliam Museum, who has a collection of Samuel Palmer. And Edward Calvert. I should like to show you. You could come with Florence, then we should be quite correct.”

“It is odd that we have to be so correct, when we have known each other so long. It is very silly.”

In flaming June, some weeks after Methley’s lecture, Charles/Karl put his bicycle on a train at Charing Cross, got out at Rye and rode out across the Romney Marsh, past East Guldeford, Moneypenny and the Broomhill Level, swerving between dykes and sewers, watching the plovers circle and hearing the geese honk, and the splash of a fish rising. He rode up beside Jury’s Gut Sewer towards Pigwell, skirting the Midrips ponds and the Lydd Firing Ranges of the army. He came to a cottage standing by itself, in a windswept but flowery garden, with a painted board, Birdskitchen Corner. It was an old, brick building, with a porch, and beach beside it. The lawn was small, lumpy and drying out. A small girl was playing on the lawn, with an assortment of pottery mugs and plates and dishes, and a ring of seated dolls and animals. She had long fine brown hair, and a small, neat face. “If you’re good,” she said to a stuffed badger, “you can have two slices.” She poured water from the teapot, and handed out dandelion heads. “Not that you ever are good,” she said, and looked up, and saw Charles/Karl. “Hello, Ann,” said Charles/Karl.

She stood up, turned and ran into the house. She came out again, followed by Elsie, wiping floury fingers on her apron.

“I was just passing by,” he said to her, smiling cautiously.

“It’s not often people pass by here, seeing that the track doesn’t really go anywhere.”

“It’s a track I’ve come to like,” he said. “So I ride down it.”

“Sit down,” commanded Ann. “And I’ll give you some tea and cake.”

“May I?” he said to Elsie.

“I think so,” she said.

So he sat on the bench, and was given a blue lustre cup of clear water, and a rosy plate with two dandelions and a daisy. “Pretty cups and plates,” said Charles/Karl.

“Philip makes them for her. Well, no, now I look at them, you’ve got a little dish I made myself, years ago.”

They were silent for a moment. He reached into his haversack and brought out a parcel in green shiny paper, tied with ribbon, which he handed to Ann. She opened it. It was a book of nursery rhymes, prettily illustrated. Ann held it to her chest, and said to Charles/Karl

“I can read, you know, I can read all by myself.”

“She can, too,” said Elsie. “I taught her.” She said “You can stay to dinner, if you want. There’s cod, enough for three, and parsley sauce, and potatoes.”

“I should like that.”

So they went in, and sat at table, and talked peacefully, to and about Ann.

“Mrs. Oakeshott is away?”

“She’s gone to a lecture in Hythe. And Robin’s out with a friend. So we’d have been peacefully lonesome, if you hadn’t come along.”

Elsie was now a student-teacher, in Puxty School. She earned a little money, and lived in part of Marian Oakeshott’s cottage. Charles/Karl, after praising the juiciness of the cod, and the freshness of the sauce, asked if the work was as interesting as she’d hoped.

“It’s interesting,” said Elsie. “It’s good to be needed, and watch the little ones light up when they grasp how to read. But I’m not satisfied. I don’t know that I’ll ever be satisfied.”

“I don’t know why I so like to see that half-cross look on your face. It was the first thing I noticed about you, a kind of constructive discontent.”

“Well, that’s not likely ever to change, I think.”

“I don’t know …”

Elsie got up abruptly, and began to wash the dishes. Charles/Karl took a cloth, and dried them. Ann wandered away, and fell into a doze on a sofa. They went out, and sat down again on the beach, by the porch, looking out over the beds of reeds and strips of shingle. He said

“You are the only person in the world I feel quite comfortable with. Despite your being so prickly and unsatisfied.”

“I like to be wi’ you, too. But we’re going nowhere. This is th’ end of the road. That track gets to the shingle bank and just ends.”

“I should like to be able to see you much more—to be with you. You’re good for me.”

“I’m good for no one but Ann. And the little ’uns at the school, I suppose. I’ve made one mistake, Mr.—Karl— and I’m not about to make any more.”

“It wouldn’t be like that.”

“You don’t know how ‘that’ was. I made my bed, I’ll lie in it. I’ve got good friends. You and me—this is an imaginary tea-party, like Ann giving you flowers and water. We come out of two different worlds, and they don’t mix.”

“I don’t believe in all that.”