It was queer. You would almost say that there was a Provvy who delighted to torment you with: “If it hadn’t been that …” Christopher probably believed that there was a Provvy or he would not dream for his little Chrissie a country parsonage. … He proposed, if they ever made any money, to buy a living for him—if possible near Salisbury. … What was the name of the place? … a pretty name. … Buy a living where George Herbert had been parson. …
She must, by the by, remember to tell Marie Léonie that it was the Black Orpington labelled 42 not the Red 16 that she had put the setting of Indian Runners under. She had found that Red 16 was not really broody, though she had come on afterwards. It was queer that Marie Léonie had not the courage to put eggs under broody hens because they pecked her, whereas she, Valentine, had no courage to take the chickens when the settings hatched, because of the shells and gumminesses that might be in the nests. … Yet neither of them wanted courage. … Hang it all, neither of them wanted courage, or they would not be living with Tietjenses. It was like being tied to buffaloes!
And yet … How you wanted them to charge!
Bremersyde. … No, that was the home of the Haigs. … Tide what will and tide what tide, there shall be Haigs at Bremersyde. … Perhaps it was Bemersyde! … Bemerton, then. George Herbert, rector of Bemerton, near Wilton, Salisbury. … That was what Chrissie was to be like. … She was to imagine herself sitting with her cheek on Chrissie’s floss-silk head, looking into the fire and seeing in the coals, Chrissie, walking under elms beside ploughlands. Elle ne demandait, really, pas mieux!
If the country would stand it! …
Christopher presumably believed in England as he believed in Provvy—because the land was pleasant and green and comely. It would breed true. In spite of showers of Americans descended from Tiglath Pileser and Queen Elizabeth, and the end of the industrial system and the statistics of the shipping trade, England with its pleasant, green comeliness would go on breeding George Herberts with Gunnings to look after them. … Of course with Gunnings!
The Gunnings of the land were the rocks on which the lighthouse was built—as Christopher saw it. And Christopher was always right. Sometimes a little previous. But always right. Always right. The rocks had been there a million years before the lighthouse was built: the lighthouse made a deuce of a movable flashing—but it was a mere butterfly. The rocks would be there a million years after the light went for the last time out.
A Gunning would be, in the course of years, painted blue, a Druid-worshipper, a Duke Robert of Normandy, illiterately burning towns and begetting bastards—and eventually—actually at the moment—a man of all works, half-full of fidelity, half blatant, hairy. A retainer you would retain as long as you were prosperous and dispensed hard cider and overlooked his peccadilloes with women. He would go on. …
The point was whether the time had come for another Herbert of Bemerton. Christopher thought it had: he was always right; always right. But previous. He had predicted the swarms of Americans buying up old things. Offering fabulous prices. He was right. The trouble was they did not pay when they offered the fabulous prices: when they did pay they were as mean as … she was going to say Job. But she did not know that Job was particularly mean. That lady down below the window would probably want to buy the signed cabinet of Barker of 1762 for half the price of one bought in a New York department store and manufactured yesterday. … And she would tell Valentine she was a bloodsucker, even if—to suppose the ridiculous!—Valentine let her have it at her own price. On the other hand, Mr. Schatzweiler talked of fantastic prices. …
Oh, Mr. Schatzweiler, Mr. Schatzweiler, if you would only pay us ten percent of what you owe us I could have all the pink fluffies, and three new gowns, and keep the little old lace for Chrissie—and have a proper dairy and not milk goats. And cut the losses over the confounded pigs, and put up a range of glass in the sunk garden where it would not be an eyesore. … As it was …
The age of fairytales was not, of course, past. They had had windfalls: lovely windfalls when infinite ease had seemed to stretch out before them. … A great windfall when they had bought this place; little ones for the pigs and old mare. … Christopher was the sort of fellow; he had sowed so many golden grains that he could not be always reaping whirlwinds. There must be some halcyon days. …
Only it was deucedly awkward now—with Chrissie coming and Marie Léonie hinting all day that, as she was losing her figure, if she could not get the grease stains out of her skirt she would lose the affections of Christopher. And they had not got a stiver. … Christopher had cabled Schatzweiler. … But what was the use of that? … Schatzweiler would be finely dished if she lost the affections of Christopher—because poor old Chris could not run any old junk shop without her. … She imagined cabling Schatzweiler—about the four stains on the skirt and the necessity for elegant lying-in gowns. Or else he would lose Christopher’s assistance. …
The conversation down below raised its tones. She heard the tweeny maid ask why if the American lady was a friend of the family
