Automatically she brushed herself down. The wind, coming in a sudden rainy gust, took the heap of fragments and tossed it into the air and began to scatter it up the hillside among the roses. The pale scraps chased away in every direction, racing along the grass, somersaulting across the flower beds, flying even as far as the road and coming to rest in muddy pools and against heaps of manure and among thorny branches or being carried off upon the wheels of passing cars. Ann made an ineffectual gesture to stop them and then let them go. The image of Felix was dispersed and scattered.
Ann put the paraffin tin into the empty bucket and began slowly to ascend the hill. It was drizzling a little now and the rainbow had gone. She turned up the collar of her coat and smoothed back the damp hair. About half-way up the hill she noticed something stirring under a big arching bush of Stanwell Perpetual. There was an animal under the bush. She put down the bucket and peered and saw that it was Hatfield, a thin and rather bedraggled and wild-looking Hatfield. She began to entice him. He cowered and then retreated a little between the bushes. Ann followed, her coat dragging on the thorns. She crouched down and called to him. After staring suspiciously he approached a little and she was able to pounce on him before he again took flight. She stumbled out from among the roses with the cat struggling and growling in her arms.
By the time she reached the kitchen the rain was heavier and her hair was plastered to her head. She shut the kitchen door behind her with her foot and released Hatfield who shook himself and then sat down looking damp and puzzled in his old place in front of the Aga. Ann rubbed her hair with a towel. So Miranda had loved Felix. Why had she not seen it? But she could not have seen what she could not have conceived of. And yet why was it so inconceivable? Miranda had loved him and had, Ann could now work it out in detail, acted accordingly. Ann felt no resentment; she felt infinitely sorry for her daughter and in a strange way impressed. And she blamed herself for being insensitive and blind.
She fetched out some cold meat and a bowl of milk for Hatfield, which he sniffed over and then delicately consumed. He stretched himself out on the flag-stones. Ann sat down with the cat at her feet. So the act had been Miranda's, it had indeed all happened' on another plane'. She had had no act at all of her own, she had been part bf someone else's scheme, a thought, almost, in someone else's mind. And yet surely this was not right either. She shook her head. Had she acted, or had her act been stolen from her? Can our acts be stolen from us? She was certainly not good at thinking about such matters, she had lived in unconsciousness too long. Then she recalled how Douglas Swann had said to her that 'being good is a state of unconsciousness', and she shook her head again.
She leaned down and stroked the cat. She had lived in unconsciousness and doubtless she would again, for it was her nature. She was not framed for recognizing, let alone for grasping her own felicity. In the end perhaps, for her, not knowing was better than knowing. Felix would never understand either. But to be understood is not a human right. Even to understand oneself is not a human right. She would leave the vain pursuit of the elusive act. What had happened had happened; and even if it were indeed the case that some obscure degenerate love for Randall had moved her, had it almost seemed frightened her away from what was rational and beautiful and free, she could not feel any clear remorse or regret. Felix would be well, Felix would be very well, without her. Still less did she feel any inclination to call her obsession by any grander name. Not to know was best, to forget was best. But it would not be Randall or Felix that she would forget but only herself, only what she had done and what it meant.
As she looked down at the big stripey cat purring and beginning to wash itself she remembered Fanny, and saw Fanny communing with Hatfield in a special way that she had, lifting him high up in front of her face with his feet and tail dangling. He would dangle patiently there, staring intently into her eyes. How little she had known Fanny. Yet she supposed she had loved her. She thought too of Steve, hidden and lost now in the mystery of his arrested boyhood. And from these two stilled centres, as between two pale and clouded stars, there arched for her a great silent dome of resignation. She had not known them. She did not know herself it was not possible, it was not necessary, it was perhaps not even proper. Real compassion is agnosticism; and we must be compassionate to ourselves too. Tasks lay ahead, one after one after one, and the gradual return to an old simplicity. She would never know, and that would be her way of surviving.
Nancy Bowshott came in carrying a big tray covered with pots of raspberry jam. Ann jumped up almost guiltily. 'Oh, Nancy, look who's here, in front of the stove!
'There now, there now! Didn't I always tell you he'd come home again? .
Chapter Thirty-six
DEAREST Dad, I hope you got the cable all right to say that Penny was back safely. He enjoyed his trip and arrived in the pink and has been full of beans ever since! He would send his love I know only he's off at the Stadium at the moment servicing Tommy Benson's bike. Jimmie says he can have one of his own next year, and you can imagine he's starry-eyed! But I'm rambling on as usual and haven't properly said from all of us thanks awfully for giving Penny such a stunning time. We're madly grateful to you for making it possible, and he obviously enjoyed every moment. We've been positively grilling him you can imagine since he got back, poor boy! You know how inarticulate he is, but he's obviously had the time of his life. He's awfully improved too in lots of ways, so much more confident and grown-up. 'And tidier! You've all been an education and an eye-opener for him. Jimmie even accuses him of having an English accent!
Dear Dad, I've thought of you all so much this summer and wished I could see you. (I quite understand you can't visit us — it is so expensive.) I've thought and thought about Randall and I do feel sure, don't you, that he'll just turn up like a bad penny one of these days and expect everyone to embrace him and kill the fatted calf and so forth and what's more they will?! Jimmie says people like Randall can get away with murder and it's but too true. It's a case of to him that hath shall be given and so on and Randall's always known he can do whatever he likes and still be loved. I'm sure he'll come back. (Jimmie isn't so sure actually.) But poor poor Ann. I expect you have been with her a lot. I do wish I could be. I've written her reams of letters of course.
I mustn't go on about these sad things. There are so many nice things too. Jimmie has had another promotion and has ordered the annexe to be built! (Just as well, as our dear shack is about busting at the seams.) Jeanie has won a prize for geography. (I think she's quite the intellectual of this family!) And the baby's due in less than a month! Everyone is so impatient, they practically crowd round me shouting! We've decided, after endless argument, to call it Andrew if it's a boy and Margaret if it's a girl. I do hope you approve! Penny wants it to be a boy and Bobby wants it to be a girl and the rest of us will be delighted with whatever's sent along, so long as it's the proper shape and in its right mind! I'll cable you, of course, as usual.