The Worn Doorstep

BY

MARGARET SHERWOOD

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1917

Copyright, 1916, By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserved

Published, September, 1916 Reprinted, October, 1916 November, 1916 (five times) December, 1916 (five times) February, 1917

Printers S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

THE WORN DOORSTEP

August 25, 1914. At last I have found the very place for our housekeeping; I have been searching for days: did you know it, dear? The quest that we began together I had to follow after you went to the front; and, through the crashes of tragic rumours that have rolled through England, I have gone on and on, not running away or trying to escape, but full of need to find the right corner, the right wall against which I could put my back and stand to face these great oncoming troubles. I have travelled by slow trains across quiet country which does not as yet know there is war; I have driven in an old-fashioned stage or post wagon,—you never told me that there were such things left in your country,—past yellow harvest fields in calm August weather; I have even walked for miles by green hedgerows, which wear here and there a belated blossom, searching for that village of our dreams where our home should be, quiet enough for the work of the scholar, green for two lovers of the country, and grey with the touch of time. I knew that now it could be almost anywhere; that it did not

matter if it were not near Oxford, and it seemed to me that I should rather have it a bit—but not too far—away from the "dreaming spires." So I went on and on, with just one thought in my mind, because I was determined to carry out our plan to the full, and because I did not dare stay still. There's a great strange pain in my head when I am quiet, as if all the mountains of the earth were pressing down on it, and I have to go somewhere, slip out from under them before they crush me quite.

Often, at a distance, I thought that I had found it; thatched roofs or red tiles, or a lovely old Norman church tower would make me sure that my search was done; but again and again I found myself mistaken, I can hardly tell you why. You know without telling, as you must know all I am writing before I make the letters, and yet it eases my mind to write. At no time did you seem very far as I searched hill country and level lands, watching haystacks and flocks of sheep, sometimes through sunny showers of English rain.

But now I have discovered our village, the very one that I dreamed in childhood, that you and I pictured together, and I know that at last I have come home. I knew it by the rooks, for I arrived late in the afternoon, and the rooks were flying homeward to the great elms by the church,—groups of them, here, there, and everywhere, black against the sunset. Such a chattering and gossiping, as they went to bed in the treetops! Such joy of home and bedtime! I knew it by the grey church tower in its shelter of green leaves, and the ancient little stone church on the top of the gentle hill among its old, old, lichen-covered tombstones.

The village homes, in a straggling row, looked half familiar; the grassy meadow that rolls to the village edge, still more so; and the quaint old Inn, where I spent the night and where I am writing—surely some of my ancestors, centuries ago, slept at that very Inn, for I half remember it all,—low ceilings, latticed windows, stone floor, and great, smothering feather bed. Everywhere, indoors and out, I am aware of forgotten chords of sympathy. Those small boys in short trousers, trudging home on tired legs and little bare feet—"did I pass that way a long time ago?" Did some one back of me in the march of life—my ancestors came from this East country—grow tired and rebel in a village like this and run away to America? In some way, by memory, by prophecy, all seems mine; the worn paths; the hollowed door-stones; the ruddy faces moving up and down the walled streets, and the quiet under the grass in the churchyard. And you are everywhere, interpreting, making me understand, with that insight compounded of silent humour and

silent sympathy. I am too tired to do anything to-night but have my tea and bit of toast and egg, and warm my fingers at the open fire, for the evening is chill; but to-morrow I shall go searching for our house, and I know I shall find it, for I have a curious sense that this is not only the place for my home with you, but that some far, far back sense of home broods here.

The grey war-cloud drifts closer and grows darker. Namur has fallen into German hands; there are rumours—God grant that they are not true!—that the French and the English troops are retreating. In spite of the entire confidence of the people here in their island security, there is fear in my heart for England, this England which seems so remote from cruel struggle, as if created in some moment of Nature's relenting, when she was almost ready to take back her fell purpose,—it is so full of fragrances, of soft colours of flowers, of softer green of hedgerows and meadows. There is something in you, you Englishmen of finer type, shaped by this beauty, quiet and self-contained, of hill and dale and meadow. Surely in you too I know this quietness, this coolness, the still ways of the streams.

August 26. Past the grey church, and down the hill, at the edge of the great green meadow, and a bit apart from the village, I found our house, with its wooden shutters and its white front door closed, a quaint old brick cottage, waiting for life to come to it again. It has a brick front walk, and a brick wall stands about it, save at the back, where the stream that skirts the meadow flows at the very garden edge. Can you see it, the wistaria, the woodbine, the honeysuckle over the wee porch, the climbing, drooping, straggling vines that make the whole little house look oddly like a Skye terrier? It is all unkempt; grass grows in tufts between the bricks, and weeds in the neglected grass. The chimney needs repairing; some of the little diamond panes in the latticed windows are broken, alas! I did not venture inside the wrought-iron gate, for the encompassing veneration for property rights is strong upon me; not in the British Isles shall I be caught trespassing! Can you not imagine, as I can, how a dainty order, satisfying even your fastidious taste, could grow out of its present

desolation, with a little weeding here, a little trimming there, a nail, a bit of board, a few bricks,—surely we could find a few old weathered ones to match. There must be touches of the new, but careful preservation of all the old, of all the eloquent worn edges that tell of the coming and going of past life.

Something—anything—to keep away the thoughts I refuse to harbour. I can not, I can not even yet, think of the misery of this war. It beats in my ears, like great hard waves; it clangs and clamours, strikes, comes in imagined horrible shrill whistles and great explosions. There is nothing in me that understands war; new tracks will have to be beaten out in my brain before I can grasp any of it. It is a vast, unmeasured pain beyond my own pain.

I have got to have a place of my own in which to face them both, for a little while, a little while, where I may stand and think,—perhaps even pray.

No one was about, except a shaggy pony, grazing in the rich green meadow, with a rough lock of hair over his eyes. I find a little stone bridge across the stream and try to make his acquaintance. He lifts his head and looks at me through his forelock, seems to respond with cordiality to my overtures, whinnies, and even takes a step or two toward me as I draw near; then, when I can almost touch him, gives a queer little toss of his head, kicks up his heels, and dashes off to a rise of ground, where he stands with a triumphant air, his legs planted wide apart, seeming to say: "Such be forever the fate of those who try to catch and harness me!" Then he falls to grazing again, keeping one eye out to see whether I am coming near.

Presently came an old man with a rake, and I made some inquiries about the house, but the haymaker's dialect was as hard for me to understand as mine was for him. I learned only that the little 'ouse belonged to the 'All; that it had been occupied by one of the functionaries at the 'All;—it will be good for you, you Englishman, to live in a little house once inhabited by an unimportant person, good for you to forget caste and class and bend a bit, if need be, at your own front door! Like yourself, young Master went with the first adventurers to the war, the old man said, and the 'All was closed. And he added, with significant gestures with his rake, what he would do to "they Germans", if he once got hold of them. I judged, by the red satisfaction in his face, that the wooden rake in a shaking old hand constituted for him a vision of "preparedness for war."

So there it stands, on the edge of a great estate that sweeps out to eastward; low-lying lines of green in the west mean forest, and that soft look of sky and cloud in the east means the sea. It is absolutely the place for which we looked so long and will satisfy the home sense, so strong in both of us. I wonder at my good fortune in finding it, as I carried on the search alone, and I refuse to entertain the idea that I may not have it for my own. The roof droops low over the windows; there is a tall poplar by the wrought-iron gateway; the brick wall, vine-covered in places, will shut us away from all the world, belovèd. Within we shall plant our garden, and light our fire on the hearth, and live our life together, you and I, just you and I.

August 27. But can I get it? I am in a prolonged state of suspense. Nobody in the village seems to know anything, but everybody is of firm conviction that somebody higher up knows everything, and that all is well. I appealed to my landlady; she very pleasantly informed me with an air of great wisdom that it might be I could 'ave it, it might be I couldn't; nobody could say. No, she could not tell me to whom to apply, with the 'All closed, as it was, 'm, and the Squire away. Standing—there was barely standing-place—in her own over-furnished sitting room, filled to its low ceiling with bric-a-brac, whatnots with unshapely vases, tall glass cases with artificial flowers or alabaster vases under them, porcelain figures,—one a genuine purple cow,—she seemed, as many a more imposing person on this side of the water and the other seems, a victim of property.

"An' I do 'ave difficulty, Miss, in gettin' about," she said, as her apron knocked a Dresden china shepherdess and a Spanish guitar player off an over-crowded table; "but I don't quite know what to do about it."

"A broom!" I suggested.

"Broom? Oh, it's nicely swept, and everything dusted regularly once a week, 'm," she assured me. Oh, for one German bomb!

Luncheon time, and no solution of my problem; a futile visit to the postmistress, who informed me that I should have to wait until the war was over, and Master came home to the Hall. I was meditating an inquiry at the vicarage, though that involved more audacity than I can easily summon, when my landlord came riding home on a big bony steed and had a conference with his wife in the kitchen. He, it seems, is temporarily agent for the property; he has the keys to the little red house and to my future destiny. I try hard to think what will be pleasing to so huge and so important a personage, as I walk down the village street at his side, two steps to his one. An unfortunate conjecture about the retreat of the British brings forth the emphatic statement that the British never retreat. With a train of thought of which I am, at the time, unconscious, I tell him that I am an American; he listens indifferently. I tell him that my uncle is at the head of an important New York banking house; he at once becomes responsive and respectful.

We go through the little iron gate and up the brick walk; out of a vast pocket he takes an old wrought-iron key and unlocks the white front door.

As we entered, I had a curious sense that you were inside; I never draw near a closed door without a feeling that it may open on your face. Instead, there was only the blankness and the empty odour of a house long closed, and yet it seemed hospitable, as if glad to have me come. I examined every inch of it, peered into each corner, and explored every nook and cranny. It is just as it should be, with low ceilings, old brown rafters, and brick fireplaces,—the one in the kitchen has a crane. The little dining room is panelled, the living room wainscoted; I like the dull old oak woodwork and the solidity of everything, which seems to belong to an elder, stable order, not to this earth-quakey world of to-day. The living room, facing the south, and thus the meadow and the brook, is sunny, but not over-light, with its window seats and casement windows, diamond-paned. The stairs are narrow and a bit cramped, but my landlord of the Inn gives me permission—ah, I forgot to say that he tells me I may have the house and grounds for fifty

pounds a year; fifty pounds for all this and a running stream too!—permission to make a few changes which I hesitatingly suggested, and for which I shall pay, as the rent is low. There must be a bathroom—perhaps water can be piped from the stream; a partition is to be knocked down, and the stairs will then go up from the living room, not in the little box wherein they are at present enclosed. Where can I find an old stair rail and newel post suitable for the old house? Mine host will himself attend to the roof and the chimneys; and he says that there are some discarded diamond-paned windows lying in an outhouse at the Inn, from which glass may be taken to replace those that are broken, if any one can be found to set it properly.

He was amused that I wanted them, amused by my pleasure in the old and quaint. If he had his way, large new panes of glass should go into all windows wheresoever; he would like everything shiny and varnishy. Naturally I did not confess, when he apologized for the lack of this and that, that I was glad of the inconveniences, glad of relief from the mechanical and tinkling comforts of our modern life; he would never understand! To speak of an old-fashioned American would be to him a contradiction in terms; yet in some ways we are one of the most conservative people on earth, holding certain old ways of thought most tenaciously. It is only our muscles that are modern! I am very like a Pilgrim mother in my convictions of right and wrong.

There is some deep reason why many Americans care so profoundly for old buildings, old furnishings, old habits which we find here; they typify inner characteristics which we must not forget in a young land where changes come too swiftly. There is a steadfastness about it all; these old stone houses wear a look as if they had been built for something more immutable than human life. Never as in these recent wanderings have I had this sense of England, innermost England, of that enduring beauty of spirit best expressed in Westminster and the old Gothic churches; that England of ancient faiths and old reverences. Delicate carving and soft tinted glass bear witness to the richness of inherited spiritual life and make visible the soul of a people grown fine, old, and wise. Old shields, grey with hoary dust, still hang on the tombs of those who have fought and conquered, or have been defeated; a sense of old sacredness lingers at Oxford's heart,—and yours. There is something here which not all the sins and shortcomings and decadences

of contemporary life can change; not the luxury and the selfishness of titled folk whose high glass-guarded walls shut miles of green land away from common people; not the mistakes—and they are many—of the government. Back of all this, and beyond, is a something which means keeping, as no other nation keeps, the old and sacred fire, safeguarding civilization from the over-new, the merely efficient, the unremembering.

My new abode is lowly and cozy, with a fine simplicity in the antique furniture, carved chest, and plain chairs. The fundamental things are here; you should see the walnut table in the living room, with its deep glow of red-brown colour. There must be some new things, of course, fresh chintzes, linen, kitchen utensils, but for the most part only oil and turpentine and a pair of good red sturdy English arms are needed to remove a certain dinginess.

So I've a home of my own, though earth crashes and kingdoms fall and a comet strikes against us and puts us out. For a little I have a fortified spot wherein to defy the worst that time can do. I am a householder, on my own plot of ground, crossing and re-crossing my own threshold; and the big wrought-iron key is in my hand. There are ashes still upon the hearth,—from whose fire? New flame shall go up from the old grey ashes,—the central spark of home shall be rekindled here; and that is the whole story of human life.

How fortunate, and how unusual, in so small a house, that the hall leads all the way through from green to green! We shall get all the breezes that blow, for the house faces the west, as all houses should face; and always and forever we shall hear the stream. There's a step there at the back, down to the garden walk, that you must remember, you who are so absent-minded.

—I keep forgetting that you are dead.

September 6. I have been away for a week, a week in which I have not dared leave one moment unoccupied. To keep my sanity, I must be busy all the time; life cannot be cut short in this way. When great forces have begun to stir within you, like the gathering of all waters far and near, you cannot safely stop them all at once; I must have, in the weeks to come, some outlet for this surging energy.

London is quiet, and awful with the self-control of great tension. The war-terror mounts, though few speak of it; the Germans have crossed the Marne; the French government has moved to Bordeaux, and all the world seems tottering. Back in my charmed village, I wait and listen. They would not take me at the front; did you know that, the day after you left, I made an attempt to follow? No training, and physically unfit, was the verdict. I thought that I could perhaps prove to you in act that of which I could not convince you by argument in our dispute the day we walked to Godstow,—that women have the kind of courage possessed by men.

I live at the Inn during these days while my house is being put in order. A glazier has been found who can re-set the old diamond panes; carpenter and plumber are hard at work. The hideous wall-papers in the chambers have been scraped off; they were so ugly that they actually hurt. You always told me, you remember, that I minded too much the things that make for ugliness, that my eye was too sensitive to evil-coloured and unshapely things, and that I must live more in the world of thought. The contrast between these, in their wicked purples and magentas, and the wonderful cottage itself with its dim beauty of old brick and dusky panelling, makes one wonder at the potential depravity of the heart of modern man or woman! There's a shop in London,—I was going to take you there,—where they have reproductions of quaint old papers, the kind made a hundred years ago, with little landscapes, and sheep and shepherds, and odd flower designs. I chose three of these, and they are going on at this minute; I must go to see that they piece the two bits of the shepherdess together neatly and do

not leave her head and her beribboned hat dangling several inches above her embroidered bodice. It is a relief to escape from the purple cow and the hundred and one china abominations in this sitting room.