“But” (“but” marked a new paragraph) “I speak also in another capacity. As Treasurer of the Fund. In which capacity” (he consulted a sheet of paper) “I am glad to be able to tell you that a sum of thirty-six pounds ten shillings and eightpence has been raised by this afternoon’s entertainment towards our object: the illumination of our dear old church.”

  “Applause,” the reporter reported.

  Mr. Streatfield paused. He listened. Did he hear some distant music?

  He continued: “But there is still a deficit” (he consulted his paper) “of one hundred and seventy-five pounds odd. So that each of us who has enjoyed this pageant has still an opp . . .” The word was cut in two. A zoom severed it. Twelve aeroplanes in perfect formation like a flight of wild duck came overhead. That was the music. The audience gaped; the audience gazed. Then zoom became drone. The planes had passed.

  “. . . portunity,” Mr. Streatfield continued, “to make a contribution.” He signalled. Instantly collecting boxes were in operation. Hidden behind glasses they emerged. Coppers raided. Silver jingled. But O what a pity—how creepy it made one feel! Here came Albert, the idiot, jingling his collecting box—an aluminium saucepan without a lid. You couldn’t very well deny him, poor fellow. Shillings were dropped. He rattled and sniggered; chattered and jibbered. As Mrs. Parker made her contribution—half a crown as it happened—she appealed to Mr. Streatfield to exorcise this evil, to extend the protection of his cloth.

  The good man contemplated the idiot benignly. His faith had room, he indicated, for him too. He too, Mr. Streatfield appeared to be saying, is part of ourselves. But not a part we like to recognize, Mrs. Springett added silently, dropping her sixpence.

  Contemplating the idiot, Mr. Streatfield had lost the thread of his discourse. His command over words seemed gone. He twiddled the cross on his watchchain. Then his hand sought his trouser pocket. Surreptitiously he extracted a small silver box. It was plain to all that the natural desire of the natural man was overcoming him. He had no further use for words.

  “And now,” he resumed, cuddling the pipe lighter in the palm of his hand, “for the pleasantest part of my duty. To propose a vote of thanks to the gifted lady . . .” He looked round for an object corresponding to this description. None such was visible. “. . . who wishes it seems to remain anonymous.” He paused. “And so . . .” He paused again.

  It was an awkward moment. How to make an end? Whom to thank? Every sound in nature was painfully audible; the swish of the trees; the gulp of a cow; even the skim of the swallows over the grass could be heard. But no one spoke. Whom could they make responsible? Whom could they thank for their entertainment? Was there no one?

  Then there was a scuffle behind the bush; a preliminary premonitory scratching. A needle scraped a disc; chuff, chuff, chuff; then having found the rut, there was a roll and a flutter which portended God . . . (they all rose to their feet) Save the King.

  Standing, the audience faced the actors; who also stood with their collecting boxes quiescent, their looking-glasses hidden, and the robes of their various parts hanging stiff.

  Happy and glorious,

  Long to reign over us,

  God save the King

  The notes died away.

  Was that the end? The actors were reluctant to go. They lingered; they mingled. There was Budge the policeman talking to old Queen Bess. And the Age of Reason hobnobbed with the foreparts of the donkey. And Mrs. Hardcastle patted out the folds of her crinoline. And little England, still a child, sucked a peppermint drop out of a bag. Each still acted the unacted part conferred on them by their clothes. Beauty was on them. Beauty revealed them. Was it the light that did it?—the tender, the fading, the uninquisitive but searching light of evening that reveals depths in water and makes even the red brick bungalow radiant?

  “Look,” the audience whispered, “O look, look, look—” And once more they applauded; and the actors joined hands and bowed.

  Old Mrs. Lynn Jones, fumbling for her bag, sighed, “What a pity—must they change?”

  But it was time to pack up and be off.

  “Home, gentlemen; home ladies; it’s time to pack up and be off,” the reporter whistled, snapping the band round his notebook. And Mrs. Parker was stooping.

  “I’m afraid I’ve dropped my glove. I’m so sorry to trouble you. Down there, between the seats. . . .”

  The gramophone was affirming in tones there was no denying, triumphant yet valedictory: Dispersed are we; who have come together. But, the gramophone asserted, let us retain whatever made that harmony.

  O let us, the audience echoed (stooping, peering, fumbling), keep together. For there is joy, sweet joy, in company.

  Dispersed are we, the gramophone repeated.

  And the audience turning saw the flaming windows, each daubed with golden sun; and murmured: “Home, gentlemen; sweet . . .” yet delayed a moment, seeing through the golden glory perhaps a crack in the boiler; perhaps a hole in the carpet; and hearing, perhaps, the daily drop of the daily bill.

  Dispersed are we, the gramophone informed them. And dismissed them. So, straightening themselves for the last time, each grasping, it might be a hat, or a stick or a pair of suède gloves, for the last time they applauded Budge and Queen Bess; the trees; the white road; Bolney Minster; and the Folly. One hailed another, and they dispersed, across lawns, down paths, past the house to the gravel-strewn crescent, where cars, push bikes and cycles were crowded together.

  Friends hailed each other in passing.

  “I do think,” someone was saying, “Miss Whatshername should have come forward and not left it to the rector . . . After all, she wrote it. . . . I thought it brilliantly clever . . . O my dear, I thought it utter bosh. Did you understand the meaning? Well, he said she meant we all act all parts. . . . He said, too, if I caught his meaning, Nature takes part. . . . Then there was the idiot . . . Also, why leave out the Army, as my husband was saying, if it’s history? And if one spirit animates the whole, what about the aeroplanes? . . . Ah, but you’re being too exacting. After all, remember, it was only a village play. . . . For my part, I think they should have passed a vote of thanks to the owners. When we had our pageant, the grass didn’t recover till autumn . . . Then we had tents. . . . That’s the man, Cobbet of Cobbs Corner, who wins all the prizes at all the shows. I don’t myself admire prize flowers, nor yet prize dogs . . .”

  Dispersed are we, the gramophone triumphed, yet lamented, Dispersed are we. . . .

  “But you must remember,” the old cronies chatted, “they had to do it on the cheap. You can’t get people, at this time o’ year, to rehearse. There’s the hay, let alone the movies. . . . What we need is a centre. Something to bring us all together . . . The Brookes have gone to Italy, in spite of everything. Rather rash? . . . If the worst should come—let’s hope it won’t—they’d hire an aeroplane, so they said. . . . What amused me was old Streatfield, feeling for his pouch. I like a man to be natural, not always on a perch. . . . Then those voices from the bushes. . . . Oracles? You’re referring to the Greeks? Were the oracles, if I’m not being irreverent, a foretaste of our own religion? Which is what? . . . Crepe soles? That’s so sensible . . . They last much longer and protect the feet. . . . But I was saying: can the Christian faith adapt itself? In times like these . . . At Larting no one goes to church . . . There’s the dogs, there’s the pictures. . . . It’s odd that science, so they tell me, is making things (so to speak) more spiritual . . . The very latest notion, so I’m told is, nothing’s solid . . . There, you can get a glimpse of the church through the trees. . . .

  “Mr. Umphelby! How nice to see you! Do come and dine . . . No, alas, we’re going back to town. The House is sitting . . . I was telling them, the Brookes have gone to Italy. They’ve seen the volcano. Most impressive, so they say—they were lucky—in eruption. I agree—things look worse than ever on the continent. And what’s the channel, come to think of it, if they mean to invade us? The aeroplanes, I didn’t like to say it, made one think. . . . No, I thought it much too scrappy. Take the idiot. Did she mean, so to speak, something hidden, the unconscious as they call it? But why always drag in sex. . . . It’s true, there’s a sense in which we all, I admit, are savages still. Those women with red nails. And dressing up—what’s that? The old savage, I suppose. . . . That’s the bell. Ding dong. Ding . . . Rather a cracked old bell . . . And the mirrors! Reflecting us . . . I called that cruel. One feels such a fool, caught unprotected . . . There’s Mr. Streatfield, going, I suppose to take the evening service. He’ll have to hurry, or he won’t have time to change. . . . He said she meant we all act. Yes, but whose play? Ah, that’s the question! And if we’re left asking questions, isn’t it a failure, as a play? I must say I like to feel sure if I go to the theatre, that I’ve grasped the meaning . . . Or was that, perhaps, what she meant? . . . Ding dong. Ding . . . that if we don’t jump to conclusions, if you think, and I think, perhaps one day, thinking differently, we shall think the same?

  “There’s dear old Mr. Carfax . . . Can’t we give you a lift, if you don’t mind playing bodkin? We were asking questions, Mr. Carfax, about the play. The looking-glasses now—did they mean the reflection is the dream; and the tune—was it Bach, Handel, or no one in particular—is the truth? Or was it t’other way about?

  “Bless my soul, what a dither! Nobody seems to know one car from another. That’s why I have a mascot, a monkey . . . But I can’t see it . . . While we’re waiting, tell me, did you feel when the shower fell, someone wept for us all? There’s a poem, Tears, tears tears, it begins. And goes on, O then the unloosened ocean . . . but I can’t remember the rest.

  “Then when Mr. Streatfield said: One spirit animates the whole—the aeroplanes interrupted. That’s the worst of playing out of doors. . . . Unless of course she meant that very thing . . . Dear me, the parking arrangements are not what you might call adequate . . . I shouldn’t have expected either so many Hispano-Suizas . . . That’s a Rolls . . . That’s a Bendey . . . That’s the new type of Ford. . . . To return to the meaning—Are machines the devil, or do they introduce a discord . . . Ding dong, ding . . . by means of which we reach the final . . . Ding dong. . . . Here’s the car with the monkey . . . Hop in . . . And good-bye, Mrs. Parker . . . Ring us up. Next time we’re down don’t forget . . . Next time . . . Next time . . .”

  The wheels scurred on the gravel. The cars drove off.

  The gramophone gurgled Unity—Dispersity. It gurgled Un . . dis . . . And ceased.

  The little company who had come together at luncheon were left standing on the terrace. The pilgrims had bruised a lane on the grass. Also, the lawn would need a deal of clearing up. Tomorrow the telephone would ring: “Did I leave my handbag? . . . A pair of spectacles in a red leather case? . . . A little old brooch of no value to anyone but me?” Tomorrow the telephone would ring.

  Now Mr. Oliver said: “Dear lady,” and, taking Mrs. Manresa’s gloved hand in his, pressed it, as if to say: “You have given me what you now take from me.” He would have liked to hold on for a moment longer to the emeralds and rubies dug up, so people said, by thin Ralph Manresa in his ragamuffin days. But alas, sunset light was unsympathetic to her make-up; plated it looked, not deeply interfused. And he dropped her hand; and she gave him an arch roguish twinkle, as if to say—but the end of that sentence was cut short. For she turned, and Giles stepped forward; and the light breeze which the meteorologist had foretold fluttered her skirts; and she went, like a goddess, buoyant, abundant, with flower-chained captives following in her wake.

  All were retreating, withdrawing and dispersing; and he was left with the ash grown cold and no glow, no glow on the log. What word expressed the sag at his heart, the effusion in his veins, as the retreating Manresa, with Giles attendant, admirable woman, all sensation, ripped the rag doll and let the sawdust stream from his heart?

  The old man made a guttural sound, and turned to the right. On with the hobble, on with the limp, since the dance was over. He strolled alone past the trees. It was here, early that very morning, that he had destroyed the little boy’s world. He had popped out with his newspaper; the child had cried.

  Down in the dell, past the lily pool, the actors were undressing. He could see them among the brambles. In vests and trousers; unhooking; buttoning up: on all fours; stuffing clothes into cheap attaché cases; with silver swords, beards and emeralds on the grass. Miss La Trobe in coat and skirt—too short, for her legs were stout—battled with the billows of a crinoline. He must respect the conventions. So he stopped, by the pool. The water was opaque over the mud.

  Then, coming up behind him, “Oughtn’t we to thank her?” Lucy asked him. She gave him a light pat on the arm.

  How imperceptive her religion made her! The fumes of that incense obscured the human heart. Skimming the surface, she ignored the battle in the mud. After La Trobe had been excruciated by the Rector’s interpretation, by the maulings and the manglings of the actors . . . “She don’t want our thanks, Lucy,” he said gruffly. What she wanted, like that carp (something moved in the water) was darkness in the mud; a whisky and soda at the pub; and coarse words descending like maggots through the waters.

  “Thank the actors, not the author,” he said. “Or ourselves, the audience.”

  He looked over his shoulder. The old lady, the indigenous, the prehistoric, was being wheeled away by a footman. He rolled her through the arch. Now the lawn was empty. The line of the roof, the upright chimneys, rose hard and red against the blue of the evening. The house emerged; the house that had been obliterated. He was damned glad it was over—the scurry and the scuffle, the rouge and the rings. He stooped and raised a peony that had shed its petals. Solitude had come again. And reason and the lamplit paper. . . . But where was his dog? Chained in a kennel? The little veins swelled with rage on his temples. He whistled. And here, released by Candish, racing across the lawn with a fleck of foam on the nostril, came his dog.

  Lucy still gazed at the lily pool. “All gone,” she murmured, “under the leaves.” Scared by shadows passing, the fish had withdrawn. She gazed at the water. Perfunctorily she caressed her cross. But her eyes went water searching, looking for fish. The lilies were shutting; the red lily, the white lily, each on its plate of leaf. Above, the air rushed; beneath was water. She stood between two fluidities, caressing her cross. Faith required hours of kneeling in the early morning. Often the delight of the roaming eye seduced her—a sunbeam, a shadow. Now the jagged leaf at the corner suggested, by its contours, Europe. There were other leaves. She fluttered her eye over the surface, naming leaves India, Africa, America. Islands of security, glossy and thick.

  “Bart . . .” She spoke to him. She had meant to ask him about the dragon-fly—couldn’t the blue thread settle, if we destroyed it here, then there? But he had gone into the house.

  Then something moved in the water; her favorite fantail. The golden orfe followed. Then she had a glimpse of silver—the great carp himself, who came to the surface so very seldom. They slid on, in and out between the stalks, silver; pink; gold; splashed; streaked; pied.

  “Ourselves,” she murmured. And retrieving some glint of faith from the grey waters, hopefully, without much help from reason, she followed the fish; the speckled, streaked, and blotched; seeing in that vision beauty, power, and glory in ourselves.

  Fish had faith, she reasoned. They trust us because we’ve never caught ’em. But her brother would reply “That’s greed.” “Their beauty!” she protested. “Sex,” he would say. “Who makes sex susceptible to beauty?” she would argue. He shrugged who? Why? Silenced, she returned to her private vision; of beauty which is goodness; the sea on which we float Mostly impervious, but surely every boat sometimes leaks?

  He would carry the torch of reason till it went out in the darkness of the cave. For herself, every morning, kneeling, she protected her vision. Every night she opened the window and looked at leaves against the sky. Then slept. Then the random ribbons of birds’ voices woke her.

  The fish had come to the surface. She had nothing to give them—not a crumb of bread. “Wait, my darlings,” she addressed them. She would trot into the house and ask Mrs. Sands for a biscuit. Then a shadow fell. Off they flashed. How vexatious! Who was it? Dear me, the young man whose name she had forgotten; not Jones! nor Hodge . . .

  Dodge had left Mrs. Manresa abruptly. All over the garden he had been searching for Mrs. Swithin. Now he found her; and she had forgotten his name.

  “I’m William,” he said. At that she revived, like a girl in a garden in white, among roses, who came running to meet him—an unacted part.

  “I was going to get a biscuit—no, to thank the actors,” she stumbled, virginal, blushing. Then she remembered her brother. “My brother,” she added, “says one mustn’t thank the author, Miss La Trobe.”

  It was always “my brother . . . my brother” who rose from the depths of her lily pool.

  As for the actors, Hammond had detached his whiskers and was now buttoning up his coat. When the chain was inserted between the buttons he was off.

  Only Miss La Trobe remained, bending over something in the grass.