The Heart of Una Sackville | Page 6

from one to the
other and think that they looked like youth and age, and summer and
winter, and all sorts of poetical things like that.
On the south side there is another entrance leading down to the terrace
by a long flight of stone stairs, the balustrades of which are covered by
a tangle of clematis and roses. When I come walking down those steps
and see the peacock strutting about in the park, and the old sundial, and
the row of beeches in the distance, I feel a thrill of something that
makes me hot and cold and proud and weepy all at the same time.
Father says he feels just the same, in a man-ey way, of course, and that
it is much the same thing as patriotism--love of the soil that has come
down to you from generations of ancestors, and that it's a right and
natural feeling and ought to be encouraged. I know it is in him, for he
will deny himself anything and everything to keep the place in order
and give his tenants a good time, but--Resolution number two--I, Una

Sackville, solemnly vow to speak the plain truth about my own feelings
in this book, and not cover them up with a cloak of fine words--I think
there's a big sprinkling of conceit in my feelings. I do like being the
Squire's daughter, and having people stare at me as I go through the
town, and rush about to attend to me when I enter a shop. Ours is only a
little bit of a town, and there is so little going on that people take an
extra special interest in us and our doings. I know some of the girls
quite well--the vicar's daughter and the doctor's, and the Heywood girls
at the Grange, and I am always very nice to them, but I feel all the time
that I am being nice, and they feel it too, so we never seem to be real
friends. Is that being a snob, I wonder? If it is, it's as much their fault as
mine, because they are quite different to me from what they are to each
other--so much more polite and well-behaved.
I spend the mornings with father, and the afternoons with mother. At
first she had mapped out my whole day for me--practising, reading,
driving, etcetera, but I just said straight out that I'd promised to go the
rounds with father, and I think she was glad, though very much
surprised.
"He will be so pleased to have you! It's nice of you, dear, to think of it,
and after all it will be exercise, and there's not much going on in the
morning."
She never seemed to think I should enjoy it, and I suppose it would
bore her as much to walk round to the stables and kennels, and talk to
the keepers about game, and the steward about new roofs to cottages,
and cutting timber, as it does him to go to garden-parties and pay
formal calls. It seems strange to live together so long and to be so
different.
I have not met many strangers as yet, because Vere is bringing down a
party of visitors for August, and mother is not in a hurry to take me
about until I have got all my things; but one morning, when I was out
with father, I met such a big, handsome man, quite young, with a
brown face and laughing eyes, dressed in the nice country fashion
which I love--Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and leggings. Father
hailed him at once, and they talked together for a moment without

taking any notice of me, and then father remembered me suddenly, and
said--
"This is my youngest daughter. Come home from school to play with
me, haven't you, Babs?" and the strange man smiled and nodded, and
said, "How do, Babs?" just as calmly and patronisingly as if I had been
two. For a moment I was furious, until I remembered my hockey skirt
and cloth cap, and hair done in a door-knocker, with no doubt ends
flying about all round my face. I daresay I looked fourteen at the most,
and he thought I was home for the holidays. I decided that it would be
rather fun to foster the delusion, and behave just as I liked without
thinking of what was proper all the time, and then some day he would
find out his mistake, and feel properly abashed. His name is Will
Dudley, and he is staying with Mr Lloyd, the agent for the property
which adjoins father's, learning how to look after land, for some day he
will inherit a big estate from an uncle, so he likes to get all the
experience he can, and to