Yes, she knew now: she was a woman. Reason made way for wisdom in her. For the next months, anyway, she would be guided by instinct. Her body would obey the tiny indomitable unreasoning will within her, would give way to its slow growth with perfect timing, and make ready for its later needs.
The corn-stook was rustling now and she smiled as she looked towards it.
‘It’s easier for rabbit mothers, isn’t it? I don’t mean in the silly way people talk about having babies as easily as rabbits do. I mean there’s plenty of room in a burrow, and there doesn’t seem to be any room in houses. That’s another thing the mater said. She said it was selfish to bring babies into the world just now, when everyone ought to be doing war-jobs and not thinking about milk-bottles. The only thing she will like, will be being a grandmother in ARP uniform. She’ll get a sort of kick out of that; because everyone will tell her how splendid she is, and what an example to people like me – young mothers.’
She gave a fair imitation of Marjorie’s voice.
‘“Young mothers who have nothing better to do than to idle along the roads pushing perambulators.” That’s one of the things she said, and she sort of hinted that I was only having the baby so that I could leave my job. Just as though it isn’t my job.’
A small quivering nose thrust out between the corn-stalks, and then the whole of the rabbit emerged, glanced in horror at the humans, and went bobbing across the field.
‘It’s quite all right again, look!’ The girl pointed. ‘Perhaps it’s a sort of omen against all the things they say about not having babies in war-time, not bringing them into such a dangerous world. The rabbit had a bad time, but it’s all right now.’
‘It’s all right now,’ echoed Miss Ranskill. ‘So are the kittens that were born in the cellar. Do you remember? They’ve all gone to different homes.’
The smooth forehead wrinkled again.
‘Oh yes! And you told me you’d promised the cat they shouldn’t be drowned because they’d been born in a cellar and in spite of Germany. I must have been remembering without knowing it all the time I’ve been talking to you. That’s why I’ve said so much. And of course you know the real reason.’
‘What reason, about what?’ asked Miss Ranskill.
‘The real reason why I must have the baby. In case there wasn’t any – any Rex after the war; there’d still be a Rex in a way, wouldn’t there?’
‘Yes.’
One couldn’t deny in the face of truth. One couldn’t say that everything was bound to be all right. Miss Ranskill groped in her mind for the quotation she needed and found it.
‘You mean – “And those who would have been, their sons, they gave, their immortality.”’
‘Yes, I suppose so. He mustn’t give that as well if he’s got to give–’
She jerked up the cuff of her white sweater and looked at her watch.
‘I must go. Rex was writing letters, but he’ll have finished now. We’re going to look at another lot of rooms, but I don’t suppose they’ll be any use. Thanks most awfully for bothering to stop to talk–’
Miss Ranskill smiled as she remembered how very little she had spoken at all. The young and the old, she remembered, were always in the greatest need of listeners.
‘I say, if by any chance you should hear of anything near here, could you let me know? Rex’s mother would always forward a letter. It mustn’t be grand or expensive. We wouldn’t be any bother in the house. Anywhere, where the people wouldn’t hate a baby. And about Christmas time. Goodbye.’
Miss Ranskill picked up her pitchfork.
‘I wish my sister – but it’s not her house and there’s only one spare room.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that, of course. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye. And–’
‘I wish you could have come to see us this evening, but it’s the very last day. Rex goes back this afternoon, and I go back to London. I’ll ask him to look you up. Goodbye, thank you so much.’
For what? thought Miss Ranskill, as she watched the girl out of sight. For not being able to say, ‘Come to my house and I’ll look after you.’
She stooped down and picked up a couple of stooks, tucked one under each arm, plumped them down into place and brought their heads together. A plan was struggling for birth. The rhythm of her work might help it to be born.
‘About Christmas time.’
Her last Christmas Day had been spent on the island. She remembered the little presents. She had polished a new set of shells for plates. The Carpenter had wrapped the powder-bowl he had made her in a packet of dried seaweed.
Next Christmas we might be home, Miss Ranskill, you never know. Filling stockings and singing carols. It’s the grandest day in the year, but you need to have children about you. Not that there’s anything to stop us singing a carol now. Maybe cheer us up a bit. Now then, Miss Ranskill – Hark the Herald –
They had sung to grey sea and to grey mist and to sea-gulls, whose white wings flickering up and down between sea and sky heralded the approach towards shore of the fish they needed.
It was difficult to think of Christmas time in this field under the blazing, burning sun that was also beating down on the Sicilian vineyards, on the tanks and the men and the menacing slopes of Etna.
The letter to Edith came during an epidemic of influenza.
Mrs Phillips, just recovered, was striding from Committee to Committee. Her illness had been unnecessarily long because she had insisted on answering her country’s rallying cries by trumpeting through her handkerchief on platforms in draughty halls until her bark had become a very great deal worse than her bite. She had refused to let up or let down, until speechlessness made her work in lecture halls a sinecure. The household had suffered; so, too, had many of the loyal listeners who had received largesse of germs from her cornucopia of a nose.
Edith’s temperature was at its height when the letter came. She summoned her sister plaintively.
‘The tenants have given notice. The ban is being lifted and Lynchurch isn’t in a prohibited area any more. Mrs Staples says the people they sub-let to have gone already, and so have most of the troops. It would happen just now, wouldn’t it? No,’ Edith picked up the letter again, ‘they go tomorrow…. What are we to do, Nona?’
‘I don’t see that we can do anything, can we? I suppose the Wilsons, poor things, will have to go on paying the rent till Christmas time. I wish you’d keep your arms under the bedclothes.’
Edith obeyed petulantly.
‘I know, but Mrs Wilson says if we could re-let the house, it would make things much easier for them. I don’t think there’s anything but his pay. I’d hate to take money when they aren’t using the house, but if all the soldiers are going I don’t suppose we’ll have a chance of re-letting. And it’s so bad for a house to be left empty now with winter coming on and everything.’
Edith produced her next sentence between coughs and chokes, ‘I suppose… old Emma… can see to fires and… things.’ (Old Emma had once been the Ranskills’ housemaid. She was married now, but still in the village.)