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ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

By

MAY SINCLAIR

1922

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I Children

II Adolescents

III Anne and Jerrold

IV Robert

V Eliot and Anne

VI Queenie

VII Adeline

VIII Anne and Colin

IX Jerrold

X Eliot

XI Interim

XII Colin, Jerrold, and Anne

XIII Anne and Jerrold

XIV Maisie

XV Anne, Jerrold, and Maisie

XVI Anne, Maisie, and Jerrold

XVII Jerrold, Maisie, Anne, Eliot

XVIII Jerrold and Anne

XIX Anne and Eliot

XX Jerrold, Maisie, and Anne

ANNE SEVERN AND THE FIELDINGS

I

CHILDREN

i

Anne Severn had come again to the Fieldings. This time it was becauseher mother was dead.

She hadn't been in the house five minutes before she asked "Where's
Jerrold?"

"Fancy," they said, "her remembering."

And Jerrold had put his head in at the door and gone out again when hesaw her there in her black frock; and somehow she had known he wasafraid to come in because her mother was dead.

Her father had brought her to Wyck-on-the-Hill that morning, the dayafter the funeral. He would leave her there when he went back to India.

She was walking now down the lawn between the two tall men. They weretaking her to the pond at the bottom where the goldfish were. It wasJerrold's father who held her hand and talked to her. He had a nicebrown face marked with a lot of little fine, smiling strokes, and hiseyes were quick and kind.

"You remember the goldfish, Anne?"

"I remember everything."

She had been such a little girl before, and they said she had forgotten.

But she remembered so well that she always thought of Mr. Fielding asJerrold's father. She remembered the pond and the goldfish. Jerrold heldher tight so that she shouldn't tumble in. She remembered the big greyand yellow house with its nine ball-topped gables; and the lawn, shut inby clipped yew hedges, then spreading downwards, like a fan, from thelast green terrace where the two enormous peacocks stood, carved out ofthe yew.

Where it lay flat and still under the green wall she saw the tenniscourt. Jerrold was there, knocking balls over the net to please littleColin. She could see him fling back his head and laugh as Colin ranstumbling, waving his racquet before him like a stiff flag. She heardColin squeal with excitement as the balls flew out of his reach.

Her father was talking about her. His voice was sharp and anxious.

"I don't know how she'll get on with your boys." (He always talked about
Anne as if she wasn't there.) "Ten's an awkward age. She's too old for
Colin and too young for Eliot and Jerrold."

She knew their ages. Colin was only seven. Eliot, the clever one, wasvery big; he was fifteen. Jerrold was thirteen.

...