“I suppose so.”
“Then I must go and see to the cow. And stop worrying about what you don't understand.”
The visit to Norwich (an uncle had a house in that city) took up the better part of Gregory's next week. Consequently, apprehension stirred in him when he again approached the Grendon farm along the rough road from Cottersall. He was surprised to see how the countryside had altered since he was last this way. New foliage gleamed everywhere, and even the heath looked a happier place. But as he came up to the farm, he saw how overgrown it was. Great ragged elder and towering cow parsley had shol up, so that at first they hid all the buildings. He fancied the farm had been spirited away until, spurring Daisy on, he saw the black mill emerge from behind a clump of nearby growth. The South Meadows were deep in rank grass. Even the elms seemed much shaggier than before and loomed threateningly over the house.
As he clattered over the flat wooden bridge and through the open gate into the yard, Gregory noted huge hairy nettles craning out of the adjoining ditches. Birds fluttered every– where. Yet the impression he received was one of death rather than of life. A great quiet lay over the place, as if it were under a curse that eliminated noise and hope.
He realized this effect was partly because Lardie, the young bitch collie who had taken the place of Cuff, was not running up barking as she generally did with visitors. The yard was deserted. Even the customary fowls had gone. As he led Daisy into the stables, he saw a heavy piebald in the first stall and recognized it as Dr. Crouchorn's. His anxieties took more definite shape.
Since the stable was now full, he led his mare across to the stone trough by the pond and hitched her there before walking over to the house. The front door was open. Great ragged dandelions grew against the porch. The creeper, hitherto somewhat sparse, pressed into the lower windows. A movement in the rank grass caught his eye and he looked down, drawing back his riding boot. An enormous toad crouched under weed, the head of a still writhing grass snake in its mouth. The toad seemed to eye Gregory fixidly, as if trying to determine whether the man envied it its gluttony. Shuddering in disgust, he hurried into the house.
Muffled sounds came from upstairs. "The stairs curled round the massive chimneypiece, and were shut from the lower rooms by a latched door. Gregory had never been invited upstairs, but he did .not hesitate. Throwing the door open, he started up the stairwell, and almost at once ran into a body.
Its softness told him that this was Nancy; she stood in the dark weeping. Even as he caught her and breathed her name, she broke from his grasp and ran from him up the stairs. He could bear noises more clearly now, and the sound of cryingthough at the moment he was not listening. Nancy ran to a door on the landing nearest to the top of the stairs, burst into the room beyond, and closed it. When Gregory tried the latch, he heard the bolt slide to on the other side.
“Nancy!” he called. “Don't hide from me! What is it? What's happening?”
She made no answer. As he stood there baffled against the door, the next door along the passage opened and Doctor Crouchorn emerged, clutching his little black bag. He was a tall, somber man, with deep lines on his face that inspired such fear into his patients that a remarkable percentage of them did as he bid and recovered. Even here, he wore the top hat that, simply by remaining constantly in position, contributed to the doctor's fame in the neighborhood.
“What's the trouble. Doctor Crouchorn?” Gregory asked, as the medical man shut the door behind him and started down the stairs. “Has the plague struck this house, or something equally terrible?”
“Plague, young man, plague? No, it is something much more unnatural than that.”
He stared at Gregory unsmilingly, as if promising himself inwardly not to move a muscle again until Gregory asked the obvious.
“What did you call for. Doctor?”
“The hour of Mrs. Grendon's confinement struck during the night,” he said.
A wave of relief swept over Gregory. He had forgotten Nancy's mother! “She had her baby? Was it a boy?”
The doctor nodded in slow motion. “She bore two boys, young man.” He hesitated, and then a muscle in his face twitched and he said in a rush, “She also bore seven daughters. Nine children! And they allthey all live.”
Gregory found Grendon round the corner of the house. The farmer had a pitchfork full of hay, which he was carrying over his shoulder into the cowsheds. Gregory stood in his way but he pushed past.
“I want to speak to you, Joseph.”
“There's work to be done. Pity you can't see that.”
“I want to speak about your wife.”
Grendon made no reply. He worked like a demon, tossing the hay down, turning for more. In any case, it was difficult to talk. The cows and calves, closely confined, seemed to set up a per– petual uneasy noise of lowing and uncow-like grunts. Gregory followed the farmer round to the hayrick, but the man walked like one possessed. His eyes seemed sunk into his head, his mouth was puckered until his lips were invisible. When Gregory laid a hand on his arm, he shook it off. Stabbing up another great load of hay, he swung back towards the sheds so violently that Gregory had to jump out of his way.
Gregory lost his temper. Following Grendon back into the cowshed, he swung the bottom of the two-part door shut, and bolted it on the outside. When Grendon came back, he did not budge.
“Joseph, what's got into you? Why are you suddenly so heartless? Surely your wife needs you by her?”
His eyes had a curious blind look as he turned them at Gregory. He held the pitchfork before him in both hands almost like a weapon as he said, “I been with her all night, bor, while she brought forth her increase.”
“But now”
“She got a nursing woman from Dereham Cottages with her now. I been with her all night. Now I got to see to the farm– things keep growing, you know.”
“They're growing too much, Joseph. Stop and think”
“I've no time for talking.” Dropping the pitchfork, he elbowed Gregory out of the way, unbolted the door, and flung it open. Grasping Gregory firmly by the biceps of one arm, he began to propel him along to the vegetable beds down by the South Meadows.
The early lettuce were gigantic here. Everything bristled out of the ground. Recklessly, Grendon ran among the lines of new green, pulling up fistfuls of young radishes, carrots, spring onions, scattering them over his shoulder as fast as he plucked them from the ground.
“See, Gregoryall bigger than you ever seen 'cm, and weeks early! The harvest is going to be a bumper. Look at the fields! Look at the orchard!” With wide gesture, he swept a hand towards the lines of trees, buried in the mounds of snow-and– pink of their blossom. “Whatever happens, we got to take advantage of it. It may not happen another year. Whyit's like a fairy story!”
He said no more. Turning, he seemed already to have forgotten Gregory. Eyes down at the ground that had suddenly achieved such abundance, he marched back towards the sheds.
Nancy was in the kitchen. Neckland had brought her in a stoup of fresh milk, and she was supping it wearily from a ladle.
“Oh, Greg, I'm sorry I ran from you. I was so upset.” She came to him, still holding the ladle but dangling her arms over his shoulders in a familiar way she had not used before. “Poor Mother, I fear her mind is unhinged withwith bearing so many children. She's talking such strange stuff as I never heard before, and I do believe she fancies as she's a child again.”