From the Fifteenth District Read Online Free PDF Page A

in this way the works of the clock need not be tampered with.”
    “Perhaps I might be permitted to alter the sign and add the word ‘slow’ in Italian.” He
still
thought this was a game, Carmela could see. She stood nearby, keeping an eye on the plate of bread and butter and listening for the twins, who would be waking at any moment from their afternoon sleep.
    “No Italian would be bothered looking at an English church clock,” said Miss Barnes. “And none of us has ever missed a train. Mr. Dunn – let me give you some advice. Do not become involved with anything. We are a flock in need of a shepherd; nothing more.”
    “Right!” screamed Mrs. Unwin, white-and-brick-mottled again. “For God’s sake, Padre … no involvement!”
    The clergyman looked as though he had been blindfolded and turned about in a game and suddenly had the blindfold whipped off. Mr. Unwin had not spoken until now. He said deliberately, “I hope you are not a scholar, Padre. Your predecessor was, and his sermons were a great bore.”
    “Stonehouse a scholar?” said Mr. Dunn.
    “Yes, I’m sorry to say. I might have brought my wife back to the fold, so to speak, but his sermons were tiresome – all about the Hebrews and the Greeks.”
    The clergyman caught Carmela staring at him, and noticed her. He smiled. The smile fixed his face in her memory for all time. It was not to her an attractive face – it was too fair-skinned for a man’s; it had color that came and ebbed too easily. “Perhaps there won’t be time for the Greeks and the Hebrews now,” he said gently. “We
are
at war, aren’t we?”
    “We?” said Miss Barnes.
    “Nonsense, Padre,” said Mrs. Unwin briskly. “Read the newspapers.”
    “England,” said the clergyman, and stopped.
    Mr. Unwin was the calmest man in the world, but he could be as wild-looking as his wife sometimes. At the word “England” he got up out of his chair and went to fetch the Union Jack on a metal standard that stood out in the hall, leaning into a corner. The staff was too long to go through the door upright; Mr. Unwin advanced as if he were attacking someone with a long spear. “Well, Padre, what about this?” he said. The clergyman stared as if he had never seen any flag before, ever; as if it were a new kind of leaf, or pudding, or perhaps a skeleton. “Will the flag have to be dipped at thechurch door on Armistice Day?” said Mr. Unwin. “It can’t be got through the door without being dipped. I have had the honor of carrying this flag for the British Legion at memorial services. But I shall no longer carry a flag that needs to be lowered now that England is at war. For I do agree with you, Padre, on that one matter. I agree that England is at war, rightly or wrongly. The lintel of the church door must be raised. You do see that? Your predecessor refused to have the door changed. I can’t think why. It is worthless as architecture.”
    “You don’t mean that,” said Miss Barnes. “The door is as important to us as the time of Evensong.”
    “Then I shall say no more,” said Mr. Unwin. He stood the flag in a corner and became his old self in a moment. He said to Carmela, “The Padre has had enough tea. Bring us some glasses, will you?” On which the three women chorused together, “Not for me!”
    “Well, I expect you’ll not forget your first visit,” said Mr. Unwin.
    “I am not likely to,” said the young man.
    B y October the beach was windy and alien, with brown sea-weed-laden waves breaking far inshore. A few stragglers sat out of reach of the icy spray. They were foreigners; most of the English visitors had vanished. Mrs. Unwin invented a rule that the little girls must bathe until October the fifteenth. Carmela felt pity for their blue, chattering lips; she wrapped towels around their bodies and held them in her arms. Then October the fifteenth came and the beach torment was over. She scarcely remembered that she had lived any life but this. She could